Dissatisfaction. Do you remember a time when you were too small to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl when the word didn’t exist in your world? Not only because you hadn’t learned it yet, but because you’d never experienced it? At what point do we learn to want and never stop wanting? Is there a certain age when we become insatiable in our petty greed? A good, reliable car is never enough. Now we want a car with more room, a CD-changer and a hemi. Your computer does everything you need it to, yet you want one now with a dual-core processor and two video cards. Why? Why indeed because there’s no logical answer. Logic and greed have nothing in common.
I am greedy. Especially with two things: Technology and Love. I am always lusting after the latest tech gadgets, none of which I can afford. I have a huge TV, but now I want one with a higher contrast ratio just so I can feel satisfied it’s the best when in reality I probably have the best TV on campus. I want a new phone when really all I need is a bigger texting plan. I want Love and sometimes I get Love, and yet it never seems enough. I have this fear of infidelity, this fear that my love isn’t going to be quite good enough for her. I want Love plus security, which one person just can’t give. Security is gain through oneself, not through another’s actions and words. So why the hell do I expect to be given a sense of security everytime “I love you” is exchanged? Because I’m selfish, like everyone else.
What do I do about this? How do I gain a sense of security? Oh there’s all kinds of outlying contributors; self-esteem, confidence, trust, being hurt in the past, abandonment issues, etc, etc. And true, they all have a valid contribution to this Manhattan Shitstain that is my mind, but the truth is I’m still selfish. I’m selfish and greedy and the one thing I want more of is myself. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want more of me or my company. An overabundance of me is probably what got me in this hole in the first place. No, I’m greedy because I always expect more and more out of me than I can realistically provide.
I’m insecure because I don’t have realistic expectations of myself. I want to be thinner, stronger, prettier, smarter, more socially likeable, funnier, more talented, and overall more than I can realistically be. I have yet to accept me for who I am. The only thing I’d like to have a bit less of is my prowess under the sheets, which has gotten me into quite a bit of trouble the past couple of years. Other than that I am constantly, what? You guess it, dissatisfied. With who? With moi! Myself, of course. I’m always afraid she’s going to love someone else instead of me because I don’t understand why she loves me in the first place because I haven’t truly loved myself since I was 5 years old.
And here is where the argument of narcissism comes in. Narcissists love themselves and seem to have an issue of arrogance. I’ve been called arrogant and I’ve been called narcissistic before and for a long time, I conformed to these applied titles because I thought they were right. But they are not right at all. I’m not narcissistic. I don’t like myself enough to be a narcissist. I’m self-centered, yes, but not out of self-love. I’m centered on myself because I spent half my life alone in a house with me, myself, and my estranged company of I.
Having very few friends in addition to a single father who spent many nights working late taught me many things: self-sufficiency, cooking, cleaning, how to alleviate boredom, a strong imagination, and more of the like. What it did not teach me is that I am not alone. That I am the center of my universe, yes, but not so much the center of his or her universe because that spot’s already taken him him or her. When you grow up as your own closest and most constant human companion, it kind of imprints on you the skewed priority of your role in your most eschewed world.
So the fact is I’m self-centered because for the longest time I was all I knew. During late high school and now college, I’ve been exposed to more and more people who actually interact with me and it’s slowly, but surely, chipping away at that old programming. I’m no longer as alone; now I’m just paranoid. Wonderful. But hey, it’s a step, right? Crawl before you walk, walk before you crawl, wreck a racecar before you win with it, etc. I imagine that eventually, through roommates and friends, I’ll finally be a bit less of a psychological isolationist and come to terms with the tangibility of those around me who, and this still hasn’t hit home, also share this reality with me.
As for the arrogance? Hah. Nice try but that thing you think is arrogance is really my red Ferrari. Company CEOs buy red Ferraris to make up for their small penis and material lifestyle. Since I’m not a company CEO, I can’t afford a red Ferrari, and I don’t consider my penis insufficient in any way, I instead compensate for my internal shortcomings by trying to convince myself that I’m better than I am by convincing those around me that I’m better than I am. Reread it if you need to, the syntax works. Basically, I come across as arrogant to some because somewhere around my hypothalamus region I’m trying to convince myself I’m not such a failure. This comes across as me trying to convince you that I’m a success, because in my mind, success =/= failure. So if you’re talking to me and you think I’m being arrogant, I’m actually having another bout of average insecurity. Usually a hug helps.
As for Love…well, notice that I place capital L on the damned thing. I idolize Love. I endear towards it always. I am a hopeless romantic who’s become a bit bitter via a few too many stings. But who I am right now, at this very moment, as a man and as a human…I don’t feel deserving of Love. Maybe love, like that of friends and family, but not Love. I don’t deserve romance because I don’t think anybody in the world has sinned badly enough to deserve an attempt at romance with me. I discussed this yesterday and it’ll probably find some way to creepy into tomorrow’s entry because it’s constantly on my mind. I am not in any condition to be Loved. And when I Love and that Love is requited, well can you guess that my hopes get pretty high up?
But the plain and simple is that I’m not currently fit for romance. My mental state at college is such that I am more an exercise in crazysitting than actual romance right now. I’m instable, my bipolar is to the point where I not only have to deal with season persona shifts but now I am having a resurgence of irregular rapid-cycling bipolar. I’m impulsive, moody, unpredictable and prone to bouts of unexplainable severe depression and loneliness, regardless of the surrounding atmosphere of my life. I don’t think it’s fair to try and subject anyone to that and expect them to stick around for very long. It makes more sense to just stay single until I learn how to deal with my problems in a natural, intentional manner.
The problem is this: I’m in love with someone who was in love with me but has returned to the man she left for me. She says she loves me and that’s all well and good and I cherish her friendship, but I am dying. Because I know she is not in love with me while I am in love with her. My love is requited in all levels except the levels that give me breath. The problem here is not the fact that she is no longer in love with me, it’s that I’m still in love with her and I can’t move on to “just friends” until I find some way to fall out of love with her and you know what? Shakespeare didn’t write about falling out of love so I’m a bit in the dark here, y’know?
Because she’s so wonderful and such a beautiful person, inside and out, and I just don’t understand how in the hell I can convince myself to not be physically sick when I know she’s with him. I can’t be comfortable around her like this. It hurts to hear her voice and as such, for right now, I’ve cut my self off from her: my umbilical. But I return to school in a week and she lives in the room above me (oh God, to imagine what things I may hear that I’d rather not; that bastard) and her friends are mine and it would all be fine if I did not love her. Because then we could be friends and just friends, like it was probably all meant to be. So why can’t I stop breathing faster at her laugh? It would all be some much easier if I didn’t love her.
It would all be so much easier if I could just be satisfied with mere friendship. But there it is again: dissatisfaction.
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