Jane Welsh Carlyle
These dreams of finding an intelligent and pretty soulmate surfaced now because Sanita had given a big boost to my self-esteem, my being able to gain the affection of a beautiful member of the opposite sex.
Before her I had no such self-esteem or hopes. In past years I took whatever I could get on occasion and felt lucky when I had any female notice me favorably.
So far, it had always been a damsel in distress and me the rescuer, my guiding emotion ‘pity’. Sanita was obviously, painfully in distress. Lindsey escaped to me from her physically abusive boyfriend, both beat up the very day they came to me. Dale was in a mid-life crisis when she met me. Lauren ran to my door in a panicked flight to escape the clutches of John Seebach, just minutes behind.
Diane, the jazz singer, had her car break down right near the bar. Vicky needed to get out of town right away with no money and no place to go. Even Lindy, the evening we met, was a troubled spirit, recently divorced, hating her job, and seeking escape in extreme intoxication. These comprise all the relationships lasting more than one night that I ever had, except Annie and Diane (who wasn’t really in distress, just her car breaking and causing us to meet) were the only two in this group with whom I wasn’t deeply in love and left without a glance back.
This was the starting point, the forge of all my love relationships, always with desperation on their side and a heart-piercing sympathy on mine. It was true, heartfelt, pity that led to an equally heartfelt love and each separation was painful to me. This pattern was so stamped in me I could never break it.
But I can see clearly now all the precursors to this character development. My relations with the opposite sex started too late. The growth was stunted. I was short and shy of girls in high school. I had great companions, adventures, and drugs galore, fearless in our escapades but only tomboys would catch my interest.
Three months into Berkeley I had my last growth spurt, five inches, and with that came acne, mild at first but terrible within a year, lasting three years. No medicines could phase it (they worsened it as I tried all of them). So, I delved into study, solitary study, (even from my friends), when my face was covered with a dozen bright red mounds, visible thirty feet away. I almost felt like a leper.
My sex life began five years later. I skipped proms and dating. And my libido was always tepid, from neglect and drugs. Topping this off was an intellectualism by then, an alternate focus of attention equally emotional, time consuming and captivating to the very core of my soul.
With that said, a staid, level-headed, success-oriented helpmate never crossed my path. Complicating that slim chance, my male bohemian friends had similarly odd dating habits, (or none), and didn’t provide me with a sane model. What often happens with the shy is that your best friend hooks up and he and his girl make it their mission to couple you with one of her friends.
Those that I brought in from the storm, like all my relationships, were stormy. This habit skewered my perception of the opposite sex for many decades. ‘Why’ is a harder question. But I know it stems from my personality which sprouted from a perfectly happy childhood which laid the basis for a strong desire to help others. From my reading and observations, I was always a rebel against society but never against offering kindness and help towards most individuals. I loved people and pitied those in distress, not only women, but half my male friends in youth were misfits, mentally or physically, and except for me, friendless.
Pity, like ‘mercy’ in Shakespeare, spreads everywhere equally, that’s why he says:
“It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven”.
If I had met a ‘normal’ woman, fallen in love, and walked down the aisle into her mindset and a middle-class life and lifestyle, a house, mortgage, and job, with the concomitant family and debt concerns, after the blinding, initial love fest and after the fog had cleared from my eyes, I would have found myself unhappy, unfulfilled, strapped in and stuck.
Like Gulliver in Lilliput,
Tied down by strings from head to foot.
My wide reading had given me wings and effectively nixed any such existence in those years. I would have snapped and broken the 'tinsel'.
What I was vaguely dreaming of on that night was the rarest of all combinations, of meeting a beautiful, head turning and highly intelligent soulmate who could defy societies norms with a cynical smile, a Jane Welsh Carlyle, or a Jane Wilde (mother of Oscar Wilde). But I didn’t have the notice to merit such a ‘catch’.
Still, I might have met such a woman in embryo, my age, unknown to the world but aware of her own worth and intelligence, who saw my potential enough to join forces, nurturing the both of us. But my predisposition to sad, wounded women precluded that possibility. I somehow saw sane and confident women as out for themselves, bent on their own private agendas of success. If you are whole, smart, and complete, you don’t need a partner, so why chose one? It’s only entanglement. I based this on my own life on this ideology and spent most of my years in bachelorhood.
Some are lucky enough to come across this helpful soulmate despite themselves. Of all my acquaintances Steve L. and Consuelo, Claire, and Bruno, came closest. And I did envy them both as couples, during their short terms together.
But I saw their sadness drifting apart too, just as I was starting a life with Sanita. With our child that relationship lasted another six years. I passed up two rich potentials in the three year long limbo after our divorce, Sanita still single, living a few miles away but inviting me for dinner every Sunday night and Willy our dearest concern between us, her indecision to her next step in life and my concern not to ditch her and upset Will, with the faint hope she might come back to me.
But we were never compatible, miles apart in perspectives and education. We were both kind and compassionate, with good intentions. I wrote a novel at thirty-seven (in front of her, for over six months) which she didn’t even read. And by forty-four, a warm bed-mate meant little to me. I’d had four years of practice sleeping alone.
I’ve been a bachelor ever since, not overjoyed about it but content.
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