If I’m honest, if I’m really honest (and hey I usually am, right), then I guess it all began with loneliness…
Okay. Before we get a violin out however let me qualify that. I wasn’t exactly lonely in the ‘woe is me’ sense. I mean I had great family, close friends, chilled work colleagues (Jonesy aside) and all in all a pretty reasonable life way before BD came along. But I wanted more than just that didn’t I. I wanted to be that great shake in that grand scheme, and as for my personal life: Zip! Why? Well I was my own worst enemy there, crippled by inhibition and inwardly resentful of the fact too. Thus I changed, and here I am now, trying to change again.
The thing about loneliness though, and however you define it, and whatever it means to different people, is that the moment you admit to it out loud, it’s like somebody’s smashed a great big chink in your armour isn’t it.
Isn’t it?
Or is it instead a strength being able to reveal that’s how you feel? I mean in this enlightened day and age where we’re supposed to be congratulated for wearing our hearts on our sleeves, isn’t such exposure of our inner selves considered refreshing? After all, a while back even I was making the point that some of you younger chaps are far more sensitive souls than you let on, so why shouldn’t you speak up.
However, twenty-first century idealism is one thing. Raw attraction (that goes right back to before magazine articles began) is quite another, and acts on principles which often conflict with what you ought to feel compared to how you really do feel about someone. In other words, whilst you gels (whether you’re younger, older, whatever) say you like knowing how us guys think, are you really up for us chaps sharing this? Come on, what do you really imagine if a guy says he’s lonely? Sure you might identify with this yes, but has his shagability factor just gone for the proverbial Burton?
To put it another way, take an acquaintance of mine, Tony Hutchins whom I’ve mentioned before. Actually sensitivity has never been Tony’s strong point but bear with me on this one. What best describes him? In a word: ‘seedy’. I mean Tony was on the net long before it became fashionable to do so and made no bones about what he was on it for either. He’s older now but not much has changed in all the years I’ve known him; i.e. he’s still a gutter mouthed, self-opinionated lech with more front than Southend and a mix of legal and illegal bad habits. Anyhow, character assassination aside here’s thing. Tony had a pretty foul divorce years back, something he never really talks about (except with disdain) and since then I guess his views on women have been somewhat ‘tainted’. And yet, you know what, the more I think about it these days, the more I reckon how underneath all that vulgar bravado our Tone must really be incredibly lonely. But you see he could never confess to that. It would break the spell, or rather the spell he thinks he still can cast with the act he puts on (okay so he’s not everyone’s cup of tea on that front, but he still gets away with being somebody’s more than most).
Now all this isn’t the same as showing a few tears or a touch of vulnerability. If done right a guy can seriously get away with this; hell some women even find it dead sexy. But professing true loneliness? Doesn’t that imply need rather than want, by far the lesser attractive of these two desirous traits? Again I’m hearkening back to some primal stuff here as opposed to all things politically correct; in that all this is fine for women to go public on (being apparently members of the more empathetic gender) but when it’s demanded of the menfolk, the phrase ‘be careful what you wish’ for springs to mind. Like who’s going to be interested in a less than confident kinda guy who you can talk to because ‘he’s just so open’ but in revealing how much he needs to be with somebody so kills his masculine appeal?
Of course this could simply be archaic opinion. And it’s not necessarily my opinion either. You know me; I merely like to chuck these things into the mix on occasion.
Indeed what of me now? Am I lonely? Well after all I’ve just said, does the magic vamoose in a Samson haircut if I answer in the affirmative? Decisions, decisions; still, perhaps I’ll take a risk here and let you in on something. Mind you, I’ve alluded to it before on numerous occasions: from the disillusionment of my more recent liaisons which often leads to emotional shut down right back to my “sometimes” moments about Jane. But I haven’t quite said it yet have I? I mean while I’ve instead made case for the singletons out there or lately contemplated on having the butterfly settle upon just one flower, that’s much easier to talk about than telling you how I really feel lying there afterwards, wondering what the hell am I doing the moment arousal is assuaged so that I can’t even turn to hold whomever because that would give the one signal I can’t give, not because I’m a heartless using bastard, but because I just don’t feel the way I know I should. And so now I try hard to avoid those clinches too, those clinches I once changed for, because I can’t stand the fact there isn’t the ongoing click, meaning, in fact, I’m back where I started aren’t I, or worse, because once upon a time I couldn’t get a whiff of the casual stuff but now I can and just don’t want it as it ends leaving me far lonelier than merely wondering where you fit amongst your peers (despite me thinking I might at last have got that sorted; I haven’t).
I guess ever since I was called “dangerous” this has been playing on my mind. I mean I don’t even have those “sometimes” moments any more. But although the pang of Jane may have finally fizzled out I’ve nothing to replace it with and, perversely, I miss the missing her. Why? Because it connected me to maybe the only true feelings I’ve ever possessed.
Perhaps then you could say I currently have everything, and nothing. Which to me is very much a loneliness of sorts. So have I killed it? Are you running for the hills?
On your marks…
By Bastian Dash, read more of his musings on your personal home page under TBWxtra
