Oh, hell, I treat this blog like my diary.
This week sucks and it's only Wednesday.
First, there is the news about MadPriest's job disappointment, Roseann's news, the (possible)swine flu pandemic (and for those of us raised with grandparents who remembered - at length and out loud - about the Spanish flu epidemic, that's no joke), and the final straw is absolutely ridiculous. I've been brought up short in my own estimation, and in my goals, by something as stupid as a celebrity crush!
It's not the crush itself, but what it implies and what it makes me realize. Sex is one thing - that's just animal reaction - but a crush is "falling in love," albeit with a shadow that is formed of what you need in a partner. That's the problem - it implies that I need a partner of any kind! Those who know me irl know that I only half-joke about my problems with being human. I truly don't like being human, being emotional, dependent, limited to viewpoint. Needing.
I should be an iron wall, a mountain of adamant, a sun, high, far-off, strong and detachedly loving all - and needing no one in particular.
This . . . crush - and how I hate that term and the admission of it - means that there is that need in me. It's that need that forms gestures, looks and words into the shadow that is the eidolon of the person I need - to love. Human need and human love, both so weak and revolting. Yes, we're not talking specifically about the celebrity, now, but what the crush itself is a symptom of, the underlying weakness and human disease of loneliness, need to be held, to not have to be strong with someone - it's not even about sex, which is something that I could dismiss and . . . take care of. It's love of a character, a character whose presence in my mind indicates a need for human companionship I thought I was rid of. Love all, but love none in particular. That's more than human. This need for a companion is merely human and beneath what I wish to be.
It's also made me realize why even the word lover is difficult for me to use. I can't say "I have a need for a lover," because I'm gay and was brought up in a particular environment. Sexual love, romantic love is allright for others, but, for me, because I'm gay, sex and love must be mutually exclusive - again, this is deep, complex stuff in my makeup because of the world I was brought up in. I defend others in same-sex marriage because I can see that there is real love there that is a particular expression, no different from my married heterosexual friends. For me, though, it is necessarily so that sex is merely and animal function, a low thing, like defecation or urination, done away from others, out of sight and forgotten when done. So, this love of a shadow-image brings me squarely up against my own deep wounding as a sexual being - ugh, even using that term makes me vaguely ill, at least applied to me. If the "religiously conservative" ever want to know what harm they do, here I am, a product of the hateful, shame-filled environment they've created, revolted by romantic love, sneering at my own "weakness" in needing others, turning my back on humanity.
Hey, good job, "christian" soldiers!
It's more complex than this, but I needed to write it down to try to understand it.
I. Don't. Want. To. Be. Human. I want to be more.
I can't express what I want to become, but this particular piece - set aside words, just feel the piece - expresses it . . . somewhat:
6 comments:
Ah, but is it the mechanical nature of your humanness that you fear or enjoyment itself?
Me, I'm always getting celebrity crushes. And why not? It's what they want. And these people are always so immaculately turned out.
The way I look at it is that if they have gone to all that trouble to push themselves into my face it would be incredible bad manners to look the other way.
Good points all around.
It's difficult for me to explain, because it's that place where I fall apart. Seriously, this is more horrible to me than the other crap I've been through in many ways, simply because money and health are just things to be dealt with.
This is emotion, and it's horrible.
I don't think it's that I'm afraid of pleasure, insomuch as I don't really see sex as pleasurable - satisfying, perhaps, like a good pee, but not pleasurable. This, obviously, is tied in with sex, but it's not sex that's at the forefront of it. In fact, the sexual expression itself doesn't enter into it. There are a lot of actors and musicians out there I sexually fantasize about, but this is different.
In many ways, it's nothing to do with the actor himself. I don't know him and only have a physical image with a lot of romantic fantasy attached. He's from Midland, Texas, so it's quite possible he's an uptight, homophobic jerk.
What's frightening to me is that I thought I was through with this. The sexual desire, fine, but this is a need for a person - a need to be held, treasured, kissed, all that stuff by another. That's what underlies a crush, for me, and is terrible. I'll never have that, and thought I had killed the desire for it, sensibly. It's an impossibility for me, and that need - or those needs - when they manifest in me become all-consuming and a focus of life-draining misery - even despair - because I know it's not a possibility. It kills, slowly and painfully.
Complete detachment is both the highest human virtue and highest human achievement for someone like me.
I missed this post; apologies.
Like it or not, you are a human being, complete with wounds and needs. I don't know whether it's possible to transcend them without acknowledging them and feeling them first on some level. But I suspect it's not terribly useful to judge yourself by one standard and the rest of humanity by another.
I don't like needing much, either. The thought that I might need help, might need attention or affection and not receive it is terrifying, and that fear makes me not want to ask when I could genuinely do with help. But pretending that the needs don't exist doesn't make them go away, and pretending that I'm not afraid doesn't make them go away.
One thing that has helped me to become happier and more functional in my relationships with others has been an awareness that most people are as wounded and needy as I am, and that most people do battle against their fears and try to do what is right and kind. They do their best with the information and resources they have and it is not a personal judgment on my worth if they hurt me in doing so. And likewise, the best I can do is the best I can do, and while reflecting on what I have done and attempting to do better next time is useful, judging myself unworthy or unlikeable or incompetent just makes me get stuck. Better to keep trying. Oh, I pick my battles--everyone does, to an extent--but I have so much more hope now than I uesd to, and I find it so much easier to forgive those who hurt me and to recognise love from others where previously I would have been too blinded by my own fears.
I don't know how useful any of this is to you; I hope that it is not too painful.
While I feel hope in most things, romantic love is an impossibility. Unfortunately, that need and the deep unhappiness of its being unfulfilled is the most emotionally devastating for me. It's why I can't afford those feelings.
How do you define romantic love as opposed to other types?
I ask because, in all seriousness, I have never had (or particularly wanted) a romantic or sexual relationship with someone who was not already a dear friend. I get very occasional sexual crushes on pretty girls but these are generally fleeting and not painful, in fact they can be rather enjoyable.
Wanting someone's friendship and care, though, and not getting it? I get those sorts of crushes, too, and until relatively recently they were absolutely horrible.
A subtle difference to describe. There is a a physical intimacy - different than sexual intercourse - and intimacy and singularity of focus.
For me, when that hits, it is definitely not fleeting, and a consuming thing, replacing desire for food, ability to enjoy anything, ability to sleep. The object of the "crush" is just that - it was easier when I was a teenager and really thought I was "in love" with this or that celebrity or boy at school, because I could just say, never gonna happen and expect it was over. Now, I know that the crush is merely symptomatic of a need I've tried to crush. Such a relationship is not possible for me, yet the desire for it becomes all-enveloping.
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