As most of you know, this blog is my way of learning about myself. While exploring myself, I’m exploring the world around me, and my relation to it. I share bits and pieces of my life in the hopes that writing about my experiences and sharing them will bring me some clarity, some peace of mind, and some closure to the things that puzzle, trouble, and haunt me. As I ask questions and learn about myself, my hope is that you (you who read my words) will gain some insight into yourself, and the world around you.
Writing this blog has really helped me along in my journey of self-discovery. In the past few months, I have met so many nice people, and have come to treasure the words of wisdom, support, and encouragement that you all leave on my posts. All of you are my teachers, and I am truly one of the luckiest students in the world. I’m always amazed that anyone would even choose to read what I have to say, much less take the time to comment on it and offer insight. I am blessed.
So I’m hoping that you all will help me understand some things about love and sex. Because obviously, I just don’t understand it at all. As Queen said in The Show Must Go On: “Another heartache, another failed romance…” The past year has left me with more questions than ever before.
Do you remember taking algebra for the first time? Do you remember that first moment when you “got it” all of a sudden? Algebra is some tricky shit. You just barely get arithmetic down, and you’re feeling pretty good about the whole school thing, and then BAM! Math turns into letters, and the whole world goes to hell in a hand basket. All of a sudden, it doesn’t matter that you can do multiplication tables in your sleep, and that long division is just a scratch-pad away from being solvable. All of a sudden, you have to solve for x, and who the hell cares? What the hell does x have to do with math?!?! But then one day, after much blood, sweat, and tears…one beautiful, magical day, you get it. All of a sudden, something clicks inside your mind, and you figure it out.
I came dangerously close to kissing my teacher on the day I finally figured algebra out, but that’s a different story 
Love has been kinda like algebra to me, but I haven’t had the “aha!” moment yet. I feel like I should have gotten it all figured out by now. I mean, I’m 35 years old. I’ve been married, and divorced. I’ve had two other fairly long-term committed relationships. I have a kid. Moreover, I’m a fairly intelligent guy, and I also have my fair share of common sense (which admittedly I don’t always use, but I know I have it). I have amazing intuition and insight, even if I don’t always listen to them like I should. I keep thinking love shouldn’t be so difficult!
And yet, it is. I’m plagued by questions about love. Why do I act the way I do? Why do other people act the way they do? Why do I continually do stupid crap, even when I know that I’m being stupid? Why do I keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again? Why do I see the solutions for other peoples’ problems so clearly, and yet remain blind to my own? Why don’t other people struggle with their love lives like I do? What is the meaning of love? Why do we fall in love with each other? Am I the only one who didn’t get an instruction manual for being human?
I think that’s why I identify with Superman so much, and why Stranger in A Strange Land is one of my favorite books. I’ve been an outsider, looking in and observing human behavior my whole life. I’m the alien. I’m the guy who fell out of the sky, landed here among you Earthlings, and I’m trying my best to fit in. I feel like I keep making mistakes in love because I don’t really know what I’m doing. Your customs are strange to me; your mannerisms don’t make any sense. How can you be so fragile, so tender, so delicate in some ways, and yet so hard, so callous, so rigid in others? You can be so warm, so tender, so loving, but then again you can be so cold and cruel to each other.
Why do you allow yourselves to love one another, but then shut yourselves off from that love when the other person fails to live up to your expectations? How can you allow that part of your heart to die? When you love someone, shouldn’t you always love them, even if things don’t work out and you have to go your separate ways? Shouldn’t you at least treasure them as human beings, and be thankful for the time you shared? Shouldn’t you recognize and celebrate the spark of Divinity that brought you two together? Namaste. Even if the relationship doesn’t work, there should always be the spirit of namaste between you. At least, that’s what I believe. Unfortunately, I’ve never been with anyone else who believed that.
Am I wrong because I still love all the women I’ve ever loved before? I mean, it’s not the same. That love is expressed differently now. I don’t still think of them as my “lover” or “girlfriend” or anything like that, but I still love them as people. I want them to be happy, and to live long, healthful lives. I want them to live long lives full of life, love, and happiness. I wish them well. Yes, I love them…as people…as friends…as fellow spirits inhabiting the Earth. Even if I have to do it from a distance, I still love them. Is that not right? From my conversations I’ve had with people, and from my own experiences, most people don’t do this. Many of my friends think that it’s weird that I love my exes, especially when I know that they don’t love me back. But, I just can’t turn off those emotions the way other people seem to be able to do. Most people never understand me when I start talking this way. The feeling is mutual. When they try to explain it to me, I don’t understand them, either. I believe that love is love. The basic emotion is the same, whether it be for your lover, your friends, or the parent/child relationship. Sure you express it differently with different people, but isn’t the underlying feeling the same? You want them to be happy, to be safe, to be protected, and to feel loved, safe, and secure.
I just don’t understand how people can say they love you, and make you believe they love you, and then throw you away when they are done with you. If they love you, don’t they feel your pain as you are tossed aside? And why do they have the nerve to call it “making love” if there’s no actual love involved?
Why should I want to be inside someone’s body before they allow me into their heart? I’ve never had a one-night stand. Most of the people I have talked to think this is weird, but I just don’t understand the attraction. Making love should be…making love. It should be special, sacred. If there’s no connection of mind to mind and soul to soul, then why would you want the genital to genital connection? I mean, I get it. I know it feels good. But it seems to me that it would make you feel hollow and empty afterward. Don’t you end up causing yourself more pain in the long run? My parents taught me to respect myself and my body, but more importantly, to respect the person that I am with. Perhaps they were just too old-fashioned, and now I am the same way?
It might seem like I’m getting on my moral high-horse, but that’s not what I mean at all. I’m not looking down on anyone. I’m just asking for guidance, for an explanation. I just don’t understand. I don’t know why I am made to feel like a freak just because I’m old-fashioned and respectful. I have honor and values, and because of that, I am made to feel like a fool. People have always made fun of me because I don’t think like they do, especially when it comes to love and sex. I get ridiculed and called names because I don’t want to desecrate the most sacred act in the universe. People accuse me of being too feminine, too soft, too girly. People question my sexual orientation. I am told that real men don’t worry about that nonsense.
Why not?
That’s really what I want to know. Why am *I* the freak? Am I really the only person in the world who feels this way? Am I really an alien? This all seems so easy to you all. Why do I struggle with it so?