I have a fundamental defect of character which leads me to believe that no one loves me. Further, this character flaw assures me that no one will ever love me, no one could. It’s important when navigating day-to-day interactions with people to remember this.

My mentor, Silas, assures me that this is simply a lie. It may have begun as a fear, or a reaction to some experiences as a child, but to ask why is really not a spiritual endeavor. Why doesn’t matter because there’s nothing to be done about the past. The past is gone. It is only here, in the present, because I invite it to live here with me. I am further assured that the universe holds nothing but love for me. And yet, somehow I seem to gain more feelings of control, and more truth for my ego’s entertainment by continuing to parade about in the threadbare scraps of fabric which suggest otherwise, that I know better than the universe.

I am incapable of forming a true bond with another human being, and I maintain impenetrable boundaries around myself at all times in order to carry the grief. I tell myself that if only my father had been there for me, if only she had said something if only… These are lies I entertain to maintain my thinking.

What happens is that I find myself in a cycle. The object of my affection are chosen carefully with stringent criteria: You must be emotionally unavailable, beautiful, smart, and demonstrate a great deal of difficulty communicating.

Beautiful and smart are obvious. I like brains, they reflect beauty in a way that aesthetics do not.

Emotional absence is something I am particularly fond of. I like to enter into someone’s life as an exception. This makes me feel very special. In the bubble of exception, everything is wonderful. I am usually very, very happy. But, like all bubbles, they burst. Life resumes, as it should, and I am left with soap in my eyes, chasing a time, and a place where I was once a great exception, beloved, and central to the object of my love’s thinking, actions, daydreams, and the poetry of her heart. I chase this until I am clearly the only person left in the room. Even looking out the windows shows no evidence of any populace on the landscape. Isolated and bitter, I retreat. But the idea and the memory of intimacy are welcome companions, and it is difficult to stay true to my resolve to stop hurting myself.

Finally, communication is the single method of intimacy with me. I never understand activities which are meant to demonstrate love. I make sacrifices all the time for the people I love, and yet, being me, I never assume that these should say anything, or mean anything. I hope they do. But I don’t do them for response. I do them because I love, and because I choose, and because I want to. Words are so empty, but they seem to be the only way I would ever know anything. The really frustrating piece about communication is that words are like water, or smoke. So soon they vaporize into nothingness. They need to be repeated. This, naturally leaves me with only my own doubt as my company, and it’s not very reassuring.

Esteemable acts, kindness, generosity, and love are a pleasure, yet, they can not remain in a heart who believes there is no love for him.

Here, with so much love so far removed from me I am beside myself, I see that there is love all around me all the time. Offers of sex, love, entanglements, friendship, kindness. Love is in the wind, and in every dust speck of every single beam of sunlight which shines on my face.

And I can only see the love that is not. So my mind and my heart conspire against me to believe, having carefully proven their case that indeed there is no love in this world, none for me anyway.

I Believe by the Buzzcocks

Pete Shelly and I have more in common than I thought…