Learning | Experience (#3-4)

What, you’re still here? Awesome. Where was I?

Oh yeah, that whole learning thing.

So far I’ve covered two things, which may seem trivial (of course, I think a lot of my entries must be trivial to people, but I’m glad you enjoy them), but were very critical in my personal renaissance.

One, it’s ok to be me. And two, my last relationship was a good and necessary step in my development. This is quite a different perspective from a year ago, as some of my earlier writings may reflect. Let’s not forget that I started this diary while in recovery, and that I was just figuring some of this shit out. Not every lesson learned is going to generate pages of text, but we still have a fair amount to plow through. Get a pillow.

3. Proactive Isn’t Bad

I’ve always considered myself reactive. Exceptionally so, in fact; when there’s trouble, or a problem, that’s when I tend to be at my best. If you generate an emotion, I match it, if you have a need, I meet it. This has gotten me in trouble emotionally, because if someone was into me, I would reciprocate. I realize that’s a fairly natural response, since a large portion of affection for others is because they make us feel good about ourselves. Still, throughout my life, I’ve been reacting to situations.

In baseball, good infielders work diligently at positioning themselves intelligently for each hitter. They study the batter’s abilities and tendencies, and match them with the situation: one man on base, bases empty, bases loaded, what have you. When the ball is hit, being in the proper location can save a hit or a run, and potentially the game.

Another facet to a good defender’s game is their ability to charge the ball and make plays on the run. If they’re in the proper location and wait for the ball to reach their glove before throwing it to another base, they run the risk of simply being too slow by a handful of seconds. It isn’t just the waiting time, but the throwing flat-footed that robs the throw of momentum.

If they instead cut the ball off, angling towards it and intercepting it along its path, not only are they drastically reducing the chance of the hitter safely reaching base, but they’re using their own velocity as a slingshot. 

I spent a lot of time in my life waiting for the ball.

I was usually pretty good at positioning, but it was completely reactive. Things always happened TO me, rather than FOR me. My career path is a series of reactions that were "outside my control". Hired out of college. Work until the hours dry up and they almost bankrupt me, and then grudgingly move on. Take the first job that will take me, work there until they either fire me or the hours stop coming in. Take the next job until they fire me, the next job until they lay me off, the next job until they end my contract, the next job until they lay me off again.

This phenomenon might be referred to as "coasting". Always reactive, always out of need. Sure, my natural talent kicked in when it had to because I was smartly positioned for when the next failure occurred, but I had a severe lack of both motivation and ambition. Hell, I was even that way in games, where I’ve always been a player that prides himself more on having an impenetrable defense than generating any sort of threat.

It’s probably not surprising, therefore, that I failed to make a number of plays.

The only area in which I’ve ever been remotely aggressive is in my pursuit of the opposite sex. I admittedly thrive then, partially because I’m focusing on being the best I can be, partially because I’ve always felt I HAD to excel to stand a chance, because they certainly wouldn’t stop to notice me. I had to pursue, I had to woo, to charm, to earn.  Show me a woman I’m interested in, and I charge it. I’m cutting off the angle, I’m anticipating curves, I’m panting on the ground, my uniform covered in dirt, while the crowd cheers at how much effort I’m putting forth to win.

Typically this comes in the form of attention. I have a fairly strong personality, and when it’s shining on you, you know it. The lion’s share, indeed. I flatter. I coax. I cajole. I tempt. I seduce. I charm.

Or at least, I attempt to, with varying degrees of success. In the last 17 years, I’ve had nine girlfriends, nine lovers, and a handful of almost-girlfriends-or-near-misses. All things considered–and if you completely ignore the QUALITY of the relationships, let’s just not go there for the moment–that’s a pretty solid relationship history. It’s not "wow, he can get any chick he wants" by any stretch, but it’s certainly not "wow, he never has ANY luck with women at ALL, poor bastard."

The reason for my "success" is because that’s where I was proactive.

While writing this, I find myself wanting to incorporate other "lessons", though I’m steadfastly resisting muddling the mix. This one definitely relates to "I am obsessive", and "I only cultivate certain friendships…", and "I cannot separate intimacy…" and "I do not attract…" You will read about all of these in due time. In fact, one of them is next. Perhaps I SHOULD have ordered these somewhat. Ah well.

I said previously that I learned the value of momentum, rather than inertia. This is proactivity. I’ve drastically redefined the way I interact with the world. I confess, it took a lot of effort, because I will always be shy, I will always have some insecurities, and will almost always be prone to reaction rather than anticipation. However, I have fostered not only the ability, but the desire to be a step ahead of the game. I am no longer content with being on the bench of my life. I am dissatisfied with the result of settling for letting life happen to me.

I even walk differently.

I used to shuffle a fair amount, distracted in my own thoughts, head down, avoiding eye contact. That probably overstates it, since as I read it the image is of some flea-ridden wino about to ask you for a smoke. That wasn’t the case. I just would kinda walk around in my own little world and wait to be approached or interrupted–in which case it better be for a good reason or I might get annoyed. As I said in conversation recently, "I’m very nice, but I have a bit of an ass in me." I’m still working on that.

Now, I carry myself differently. More confidently, as if the molecules of air before me are a thousand miniature curtains opening for me to stride through. I initiate conversations more. I’m the first; to greet, to put the other at ease, to volunteer assistance. This has paid its dividends at work, obviously, and has gone a long way towards furthering my aforementioned reputation. Moreso, my personality is getting a chance to shine.

There was a quote in A Year in the Words of Others (iv) that went like this: "A man who. . .never hesitated when it came to the verbs to get or to take. He was always getting something off the ground, his act together, his hands dirty, the show on the road, someone’s goat, the message, out more, on with things, lost, laid, away with murder. He was also always taking charge, the bull by the horns, back the night, something in stride, someone to the cleaners, a rain check, an ax to something, Manhattan."

Yeah, that’s what I’ve embraced.

Not just life. But actively living.

The lesson I learned was that you can’t just sit on your laurels and expect good things to happen. That inertia is not a positive, that resistance to change is fruitless because it’ll happen anyway, that while the saying "Don’t build bridges where there isn’t any water" is pretty intelligent, it doesn’t mean I can’t be surveying the land, questioning the local townies, researching how much materials would cost, talking to the contractors, and being prepared to move to the next site if necessary.

Previously, I was afraid. Why? Because I wasn’t good enough, because my life was a series of failures, and the other detritus of years past. Because I couldn’t believe in a future I could achieve, because I was reacting to the crisis of the moment, because I didn’t have any stability in my life, because I was too consumed with the immediacy of my emotions to focus on what lay over the next bend.

See, I told you it all tied together.

My move towards proactivity began when I decided I wanted to become a librarian. It started in earnest the first day I worked. I was finally taking charge of my future. I started planning a progression in my career. I started redoubling my efforts to reestablish a relationship with Barrett that would make us both happy. I began my quest to reclaim my physique.

It’s really a shame, I feel, that she didn’t stick around to appreciate the end result, since she was here for the beginning–and because as I’ve acknowledged, the successful part of our relationship really nourished the seeds within me. I started my job on Memorial Day 2006. Three months later, we were breaking up.

I admit, it set me back a little. Emotional distress will do that, and as it’s my nature to retreat when wound, I withdrew and went back to my old habits. My work even suffered; my boss talked with me, and said that I had been doing wonderfully, and then it was like I fell off a cliff, that my performance was suffering greatly. It was a wakeup call, a sign that I needed to resume what I’d been doing, to not fall prey to inertia again.

Done.

And here I am. On an almost daily basis, I reap the benefits of the verbs to get or to take. I shine. I am a corner piece.

4. I Do Not Cultivate Friendships With Most People

This one follows nicely from the one above, because it’s nice and fresh in our minds, and it’s also the first one that’s simply a Realization, rather than a Change in Perspective. I’m not sure how this one’s going to turn out, since there’s nothing really inspirational about it. It’s just something that kinda hit me one day.

We’ve established I’m not incredibly fond of being single. In addition to the negative aspects of my history, which can mostly be included under the heading "Finding Worth Through Others: A Play in Seven Parts", I simply am one of those people who has a lot of love and attention to give and really is much happier having someone to give it TO. This is why, typically, even if I don’t have a girlfriend, I have some sort of designated woman who is the fortunate sole recipient of my attentions.

Yes, really, it’s fortunate.  That outlet is necessary to me, I’ve learned. I need to give, I need to nurture, to care for, to empower. While I can extend this to random strangers, it’s not nearly as satisfying.

I started examining this when I thought about the friendships I’d developed since I’ve been here. I have a group of friends, but I don’t really go out of my way to bolster them. While I like them and wish them well, pretty much they exist purely as a social outlet once or twice a week. I don’t really talk to them the rest of the time, I don’t go out of my way to contact them or schedule more time together, and I don’t really miss them. It’s a completely different dynamic than Susan. I pursued and cultivated, and she matched me, which she also doesn’t do with the others. To paraphrase her, we are friends; the others are group friends. It’s a different level, a much more shallow level of acquaintanceship. Sure, let’s play some games and hang out, and swap some stories, but you aren’t going to know me, and I’m not going to know you, deal? Deal.

The majority of close friends in my life have been female. Most of these women, I’ve wanted a further relationship with; rather, that’s the primary reason I began talking to them in the first place. I look for a phenomenon I call "the click" (That’s not terribly original, I know). I actively search for the click. Remember that building bridges/no water saying above? There ya go. If there isn’t a click, I’m not interested, which pretty much means I only work at being friends with women I’m infatuated with.

Occasionally. I’ll have enough positive interactions with a person that I’ll just genuinely like them even though we didn’t have that insta-bond, and we’ll become pretty good friends. For example, Amy now, or Michelle in my past, whom I just gradually got to know over time. Amusingly, I thought Amy hated me at first because she never talked to me. In reality, she was just very shy. It took us months to really bond, yet we’ve developed a rather strong platonic friendship in which we’ve supported each other through rough times and shared a lot of ourselves. I’m very fond of her and though she’ll be moving in a couple of months to Portland, plan to keep in touch with her. It does bear noting, however, that I won’t feel the same impetus to do so that I would with someone I had romantic inclinations toward (though I admit, she’s very attractive, so if she wasn’t a lesbian, I probably WOULD have those inclinations).

As a reactive person, the click is the carrot before the horse. It’s the motivator. I chase it, because I want more. It’s always an accurate indicator of a close or intimate relationship. Without fail. Ever. It doesn’t mean that the relationship works out the way I want it, because you know, even if you’re given all of the ingredients to a cake, it doesn’t mean you’ll cook it right.

It has been responsible for the absolute best relationships in my life. It has also been responsible for the absolute worst. When I feel the click, I don’t know what’s going to happen, except that we’re going to be involved in each other’s business all up in here, that it’s unavoidable unless we simply are forced to have no interaction with each other in subsequent years–and chances are, I’m going to be actively pursuing you and establishing that relationship.

Sometimes, it’s been romance. Sometimes, very close friendship. Sometimes, very close friendship with unrequited adoration that causes me angst because I don’t know how two people can share so much and be so goddamn intimate and both be single and yet the chick still wants to put me firmly in the friend zone. Ahem.

That adoration motivates me. I’ve always found it hard to make male friends, because I never feel that compulsion to cultivate. Over time, I just realized I kinda enjoyed our interactions together. I don’t pursue them. Most of them arose over shared activities,like "hey, we all enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons and other games, let’s hang out and play them." "Ok, sure." Do that for a few months and have a good time, and you’re friends.

You know what? That’s pretty natural. But the cultivating? It’s rough, man. I know a coupla guys at work that I get along with well, and would probably enjoy their company, but I don’t make any effort to actually build that bridge, even when there IS water. Why is that?

I seriously wish I knew. It saddens me when I think about it, and I’ve honestly tried to make more of an effort to change it, both for "females I don’t click with" and "males in general", but it’s on such a subconscious level I don’t know if I can. I am CAPABLE of normally-evolved friendships, but they happen…reactively.

I mean, if I’m not interested in hanging out with someone or getting to know them better, I can’t feign it. And if I am curious and maybe interested, but decide I’d rather spend my time engaged in my own activities or spending it with someone I am very interested in..well, then it’s just prioritizing, because you can’t be everyone’s best friend.

There are some people who I held at arm’s length for months while they kept talking to me and enjoying my company and assertively befriending me in spite of myself, until one day I was like, hey, you know, I kinda like this person after all. It’s something of an emotional disconnect. I don’t invest in them. I don’t cleave to them.

Thus I spend my time looking for the next woman to set me afire, for good or ill, and until I do? I don’t foresee my circle of friends growing much larger. I’m trying to be a better person. But my radar is finely attuned towards one feeling, and one feeling alone.

Click.