dented hearts

"It’s so easy from above, you can really see it all
People who belong together, lost and sad and small
But there’s nothing to be done for them, it doesn’t work that way 
sure we all have soulmates, but we walk past them every day…"
-Ben Folds, From Above

"Some men die under the mountain just looking for gold
Some die looking for a hand to hold…"
–Brand New, At the Bottom 

Work girlfriend (WG) went on vacation a week or so after I did.  She scampered off to Tennessee with her boyfriend.   Naturally, I didn’t hear from her the entire time.  When I was gone and she had no one to talk to, she blew up my phone but when she was gone and had her boyfriend to hump and hug, she forgot my number.

A few days before she left, she sent me a text:  I’m so freaking lonely.  I say I like being a loner but I hate being alone.

Oh, I had to groan.  She has a boyfriend.  She shouldn’t be lonely!  And then I stepped back and tried to examine the situation and see it from her perspective.  I try to understand that you can be in a relationship and still be lonely.  You can be in a crowded room and be all alone.  I do try to see that.  But, I just found it annoying that a girl in a happy, healthy relationship complains to me, the lord of loneliness, that she’s "so freaking lonely" because she doesn’t have her boyfriend right beside her at that very minute, although she was about to embark on a week-long vacation with him.

It’s like going up to an Ethiopian child and saying you’re starving because dinner is in three hours and you’re not sure you can hang on ’til then.  And you say it while eating a bag of chips.  Ya feel me?

So, I wanted to shake her.  And days before, she told me she hadn’t been single in five years.  So, again, she shouldn’t be lonely.  Right?  Going from one relationship to another for five years straight, I think her perception of loneliness has been skewed.

But I stepped back again.  Who am I to say she doesn’t feel loneliness?  Maybe she just feels it in a different capacity than me.  Maybe her loneliness stems from lacking a physical connection.  She knows her boyfriend loves and cares for her and if that was me, I would like to believe that it would be enough.  Even if I couldn’t see the person every single day, knowing they were thinking about me and caring about me would make me feel better, less alone.  But maybe it doesn’t work for her like that and she needs that physical closeness.

For me, I feel loneliness in every aspect.  I have no physical, mental, emotion, or spiritual connection with anyone.  I’m not just talking about romance, ladies and gents.  The only connections I share with some people are a mutual enjoyment of writing and maybe zombies and a couple of dick jokes.  Not exactly deep and meaningful.  So while my loneliness is all consuming, it doesn’t negate hers (although it feels like it should).

Her loneliness is transient.  Mine is chronic.  But both are valid.  I try to believe that.

And it’s just hard because I want to tell her she should be grateful for her boyfriend.  It’s not like she’s in a relationship just to be with someone.  But she seems genuinely happy.  She’s not hanging out with him until something better comes along.  No, that’s what she does with me.  And so I just wonder what more she needs.  At the end of the day, despite how she feels, she has someone she can "come home to" so to speak.  I’ve got my pillows and a carton of ice cream.  But I can’t be like that because, as I said, her troubles are no less significant than mine.

But when it comes to loneliness, I’m an expert and I can’t take her seriously.  In fact, if it were doled out in credits, I’d have a Ph.D. in Dented Hearts by now.  It’s hard for me to understand because I’ve never been in the position of being with someone and still feeling hollow just as she can’t understand my emptiness because she’s been attached to a string of guys for half a decade now.  I try to be reasonable.  I really do.  But I don’t feel bad for her.  It’s hard to when all I can hear is the crinkling of her potato chip bag in my ear.