This letter and Polly's response pulled up a painful memory for me: outside a restaurant on the sidewalk when a man I had been dating for maybe half a year said 'he couldn't be with me because I didn't feel like home.' I was crushed, truly. I was intensely caught up in the relationship and always felt like I was on thin ice and in a place of trying to prove I was worth him choosing me. Years later, I now know that I needed to have stopped thinking I needed to build a 'home' that others were seeking and instead only invite those into MY home who proved they were worthy. It's so clear to me that I would never have felt comfortable in a home built for him or any other man I dated and was rejected by. I'm glad they moved on and I see it clearly now, even if it was painful at the time. Moving away from hoping to being chosen to I was doing the choosing and honoring who I am, (which I now acknowledge that I am not for most people!) has been the most healing journey of my life. It took me decades to find my way here but I'd if I could've done it back in my twenties...my thirties would have been far more enjoyable! Honor your uniqueness, accept that others are blindly making decisions about you and other people that you have no control over, and trust your path. Beautiful response from Polly as always.
How does this work when you are 37, not 23? When you *have* taken all the advice, read all the things, established a life that you try to make independent and fulfilling, when you have the cats, the home, the career, the hobbies...but also the dating apps that are literally matchless, the in-person events that yield nothing? Today I told myself that I would take myself as I am -- and I again find myself crying the way that I did yesterday. I am so tired of grieving what was and embracing what is and still feeling as though -- beyond the walls of the life I have made for myself -- I am invisible.
I'm sorry you're feeling shitty and invisible. Whatever I say will sound feeble and worthless when you're in your current state, but here's what I have: When I felt the most wretched and desperate and alone years ago, I would keep a journal by my bed and write down what I was grateful for every night. I get that this is repeated to death and won't feel that insightful. I can only tell you that I walked around thinking my life would be flat and meaningless all day and then I would cling to that exercise like a life boat. I was so lonely and sad and I didn't feel like anyone could see me or like me for any reason. But when I wrote down the good things in my life, it loosened my grip on my sadness a little. I would look at the many precious people and opportunities and accomplishments in my life and I would feel full.
I think an important turn I made, in my anxious-avoidant journey, was also to stop asking how to make people love and need me more and start asking who already needed my help. My personal experience is that the more I attune myself to others who might require my assistance and the more I dare to TRY to help, even when I feel inadequate or helpless (like now!), the more my perspective lifts and I understand where I am. I have a grasp of how my security and joy are tied to many people, and some of my most vibrant moments take place when I move outside of what I'm getting and into what I can give.
It's also crucial to exercise. I hate that part a lot. I have been resisting it lately. But it always works.
I don't love answers like these when I feel shitty. I never loved the idea of writing down my gratitude and I have never been that into "help someone else" advice as a means of addressing depression, anxiety, or even just sadness. But I feel like in my lowest state, these three things have dragged me upwards more than anything else.
If you're not currently in therapy, go. If you don't feel like you're doing that well or making any progress, find a different therapist. When your desperation seems to be coming to a peak, that's often a sign that something that's blocking you or fucking with you needs to be addressed head on and allowed to take up space. I think when despair is strong enough, the search for a partner is actually secondary to something bigger and deeper that requires time and vulnerable attention. I get that you have literally done ALLLL of the things. Don't think that I don't hear that. But I also hear despair that needs direct and gentle attention. This grieving goes beyond a search, and if you can dig into it and feel it and be present to it, change will happen.
I'm sorry that this is so hard, sincerely. Sending you love.
Also it is a funny thing. Yes, I have done those things, but as someone else has replied, these things are practices rather than life rafts. I'm learning about consistency and what it can yield.
Yes! I think when you cling to the life raft and then drag it out to the shed and say "Okay I feel pretty good, hopefully I'll never need this again," that's a way of disrespecting your body's fluctuations and dishonoring the essential sadness and also joy and unpredictable nature of being alive at this thrilling and also very dark time. I think the practice of getting into the life raft whether you need it or not, as often as you can, and saying "I will always be human and need more than I can stand" and "My softest and most fearful sensations are also magnificent and brilliant when I respect them," then you're acknowledging that there is no finish line, the process of confronting your terror and also your joy will continue, and we ALL struggle through SOME of this alone no matter who else is around.
(I'm not trying to bleak on that front, of course. But as a writer with a sometimes unstructured life, I'm forced to face stalling and lows and existential despair by myself many days a week. I mean, it is definitely REASSURING to occasionally ask to be heard, or to process something with a friend or my husband. I just think that a big chunk of the struggle is private no matter your circumstances, but particularly if GRAPPLING with thoughts and feelings is part of your daily work.)
Respecting and honoring the fact that sadness and anxiety and even loneliness will return, and letting that be the normal trajectory of a life instead of something that shame and self-hatred latch onto, is definitely a daily practice. We're trained to put all lows and battles behind us however we can, so when bad feelings bubble up we think we're fucking something up or there's something wrong with us. Sure, it's out of step with the culture to keep a life raft in the middle of your house (metaphorically!) and reach for your vulnerability every day and meditate in a way that encourages tears and surrendering to uncertainty. But I think in a way some of this discussion is about actively accepting and embracing and enjoying how out of step we are naturally. It doesn't have to feel bad. You could say it's an obstacle to love, but when you stumble on people who understand what it means to choose and enjoy that path with an open heart, what you tend to find is true attunement and mutual support.
I also want to say that as you get older, even if you know half married people and half single people like I do, most of your close friends are going to recognize and appreciate and respect the fact that friendships can be more soulful than marriages in many respects. It's widely recognized among smart women over 45 that romantic love doesn't deliver every dimension of intimacy a person requires, and close platonic friendships can also be wildly romantic. Bringing that belief and conviction to other people, even nonverbally, will get you faintly rejected repeatedly lol but when it lands, it really lands. Even some of my flinchier/ flintier/ more avoidant friends have drawn closer as they understand how important it is to honor your truest soulmates on the planet.
It takes a goddamn village, is the point, a village of freaks, and you can't stop short of that, even though putting your ass out there is painful. Noticing people who really, truly love and need you is not easy for those of us who had avoidant parents. We don't like being needed. And tolerating the avoidants is also sometimes necessary, because a lot of them secretly need us, too.
Anyway, these are all life rafts. Reaching for the raft can feel humiliating and painful. We're taught to believe reaching for deep connection is pathetic when it's not reciprocated. But it's a lifestyle, honestly, and when you have strong boundaries in general you don't sacrifice your dignity as much or allow shame to crowd out the gifts of being someone who is willing to humbly ask for what she wants, and willing to humbly look at her enormous desires without shame, and willing to respect those desires and treat them with love and acceptance every day, through every storm.
Okay this turned into a treatise! LIFE RAFT! Amanda, we are with you. xoxo
Yeah same! And I have been learning to be OK with imperfect practice. Like, if I can't do something every day but I can do two out of three, that's OK. Or one out of five days. I used to really struggle with all-or-nothing thinking about habits but as I get older it's easier to embrace consistent inconsistency, if that makes sense. I can be slightly erratic but still committed.
I totally get it, I’m a bit older than you, and also single.
But the one thing I have learnt - expecting your life to always feel fulfilling, and to look for one day where you will settle into it once and for all without any more grief, that’s an illusion. It’s like the single version of the Prince Charming fantasy. One day will come where I will live happily ever after (by myself). And you tend to take every day of tears as a sign that something is missing, happily ever after has not arrived.
I think asking what does my body want today means accepting the answer - it wants to sit in pyjamas, cry, eat a lot and be grumpy.
And at some level be like - wow! I get to do this! Don’t have to force myself to go meet my partner’s friends when I would rather be grumpy!
Yes, one thing that is sooo nice about not having a partner is the ability to move at my own pace. That is a huge factor that has always been a struggle for me in relationships but I haven't been able to articulate until recently. It's always been easy to pinpoint individual moments but the bigger picture, the constant and ongoing nature of it is where it's at for me.
This is so great. It's funny because I was recently reflecting on this exact thing: I realized that if it were my choice, I would slow everything down and turn all of my social interactions into half conversation, half guided meditation. That's kind of a joke, but I recognize lately that, while I don't mind being AT SPEED necessarily, when I imagine slowing everything down, I understand what I really want from socializing and connecting: I want to be moving slow enough to see people clearly, to really hear their words, and to think before I speak. This is also true in my work life. I want to do slow, high-quality thinking more -- somehow without losing my forward momentum, which is the challenge.
So much of our lives together is so cacophonous when what we really need is half shared meditation, half dance party with zero talking. Jesus I am really turning into a hippie.
I don't know if this helps, but there are people stuck in bad relationships who feel even more invisible. Not just invisible but deleted, because there is an intimate partner erasing them within the walls of their own life.
I'm not trying to minimize your grief or tell you how to feel--the frustration is real. But the solution the original LW has in mind (being in a committed relationship) is rarely an actual solution. The book Polly is reccomending (Banal Nightmare) has close-up portraits of several of those relationships.
thisssssss. like, not even terrible relationships! Just ones with people they don't wholly respect and have not ever really felt STOKED by, but stay with because they wrote a pros and cons list and the pros outweighed the cons.
(or because they FEAR being alone)
The loneliest place in the world is in one of those!!
Invisible to whom, though? Men/women as a category (whichever gender(s) you're interested in)? Specific people you're interested in? Invisible to yourself? Invisible to capitalist patriarchal society which tells you there's something wrong with you if you're not in a relationship?
If you feel like you're missing out, read the relationship advice subs on Reddit and thank your lucky stars you don't have to put up with all that crap. Then r/singleandhappy for some inspiration. Sure, good relationships can be good, but bad ones can literally ruin your life.
"...it is definitely REASSURING to occasionally ask to be heard, or to process something with a friend or my husband. I just think that a big chunk of the struggle is private no matter your circumstances..."
This. One hundred percent. I offer what will probably feel like the coldest of cold comfort, but anything less than actual hugs and a gallon of tea (I'm English) won't be enough, I know. I'm married thirtysomething years now, and was so TUNED OUT back then, I literally don't know what happened to get me & my wife together. What I do know is, life since then has often felt like I fell into a pinball machine next to someone who seemed pretty familiar with how to be a ball, and who was amazed I could have so little idea and yet be alive. She's still in disbelief sometimes, believe me.
I must've brought something to the party, though, right? Well, it wasn't my cute ass, let me tell you. And it wasn't money. I'll spare you the rest of the list of my non-accomplishments. I have an idea now, years later, and btw I'm abandoning modesty at this point just for a sec. It was my mind. I'm no philosopher, but I had some sort of raw "life of the mind" and I wasn't shy about sharing it. And that, I think, is what I brought, unknowingly (everything I did back then was unknowing). She was surrounded by ass but not by reflection or fascination or any desire to understand things or art or express thoughts much beyond "I love that/I hate that."
@Li asks, invisible to whom? Specific people/yourself/our patriarchal society? That feels to me like the right question. I would just add that visibility, whatever it actually is, comes and goes. There are times, plenty of them, when I feel invisible again. I'm feeling that now. I think it's probably necessary; full visibility, all the time, would kill most relationships. It's not about "keeping the mystery alive", it's about being able to BEAR another person fully. Not possible. You feel invisible now; that sucks. You deserve to be visible. I have sympathy but no advice beyond maybe try to tune out? Easy for me, who had never tuned IN, who grew up in an age free of shitty social media. Tougher now; there's so much NOISE that needs tuning out of our consciousnesses before we can see ourselves & others honestly. So little of what we see of others, of what they tell us about themselves, can be taken as "true". This isn't about lying so much as self-deception. Whistling in the dark.
Maybe some of this is relevant to the original LW, who said, when her girlfriends ended relationships saying they weren't ready for a relationship and then moved quickly into a relationship, that all the photographs, birthdays, holidays & public affection "[felt] like proof that the relationship was possible." Maan, I totally get that. But LW, you know it really wasn't proof. Not about you, or your relationship with her. And thinking it was - and drawing the conclusion that there was therefore something wrong with you - is plain old beating yourself up. Ugh, the photographs, birthdays, holidays. All on social media, right? Go straight to Put Your Phone Away. This is people interacting with the most toxic regions of modern culture - if you can even use that word to describe something so dispiriting - in exactly the way that that culture intends them to: spreading envy and unhappiness. Because what do people often do when they're envious & unhappy? They buy stuff. Back in the day, it was sleep that was "the balm of sore minds, chief nourisher in life's feast"; now it's stuff. And, while I'm in Shakespearean mode, Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Polly'!
Hi letter writer! I'm 30 and in the same boat - I dated multiple people and we ended things immediately before they met their now life partner. I even joked with one that based on my pattern he'd find the love of his life pretty soon after (and he did!). Now almost all my friends are partnered and I'm single, under-employed and living with my parents. It sucks!
I thought after doing "all the work" my person would finally appear, but it didn't turn out that way. Instead of doing what I was "supposed to do" what helped me is doing what I WANTED to do. To tackle the crap stopping me from following my messy heart and chaotic mind instead of trying to corral it into being the shape I wanted it to be. Some days what I want is to cry in the car about the fact that nothing turned out the way I worked towards. Some days I relish the fact that I have amazing friends and get to find new paths.
You don't have to be positive all the time. Let yourself be angry at the unfairness. Wallow, grieve, complain, follow bad instincts (but not in a way that actually destroys your life or hurts you long term - scream along to a song don't scream at people).
“Stop doing weird, random math that disrespects you”
Oof, this line hit so hard. 💜
I’ve been on the other side of this (being the person they went steady with after a turbulent, whirlwind relationship with someone else), and I calculated that this meant that I was the boring, safe option. But this is still weird, random math that disrespects everyone involved including myself, just that the equations are different. Thank you, Polly!
It really needs to be weirder. When I'm in a phase when I'm very good at honoring and respecting myself - which includes not blaming myself for very bad days - I start to feel inspired to bring more weirdness into the world and encourage more weirdness to blossom.
Ok I have a thought about what you are saying and I'm not sure if I can express it but here goes....I'm starting to realize that when I find myself falling into rabbit holes (internet content or being angry or worrying about horrible possibilities) it's because my brain is seeking some kind of stimulation or novelty. But then the best way to actually GET that novelty is to apply that dissatisfied, seeking energy to my creative practices. When I bring my worst feelings to my art I get the best results and surprise myself with honest weird shit. Or sometimes if you really give your full attention to one other person, you can be surprised by their weird shit too. Those times when we are playful and brutally honest and not following scripts are the times when things get the most weird and stimulating. The times we embrace the "bad" and the "good" and the "strong" and the "weak" and see it ALL as the worthy material substance of whatever we are playing with. Thoughts and physical objects become more real and more interesting, but also I am holding them more loosely and can do fun things with them.
Now I'm thinking about the Orcas who wear dead fish hats and blow up sunfish. WEIRDOS!
And to loop back around to the letter, I would also like to be able to honor the things in my life that feel like "curses" and make them part of my play. Your advice that we can only glimpse one little part of something and the rest is a mystery is very helpful to me right now. Knowing that the art will never be sufficiently explanatory actually gives me permission to make the art.
Yeah, I love all of this. DEAD FISH HATS. lol. Unfortunately, I think I've been in the practice "use the bad" and "welcome the ire" so much for so many years that if these sensations aren't vibrant enough I stall out and wonder "Have you lost it? Is it all over?" Another example of how our brains like to tell us "THIS IS ALL I'VE GOT, BUDDY!" when our bodies, hearts, and spirits are saying "Trust me, there is a deep ocean under all of this, and it's murky and strange and you just need to take the time to dive the fuck in and surrender your stories to these mysteries and paradoxes. We are blowing up sunfish every few seconds down here. Put on a fish hat and settle in."
I absolutely agree about curiosity and novelty. I think our phones are so full of the same terrifying but boring shit every day that we're ravenous. Respecting how bored I am and feeding myself more great books and more time to read them has been the story of this year for me. And also great movies, great songs. Anyway, thanks as always for your very smart and insightful input, KL!
also another companion piece that got me through these similarly messy feelings and thought traps of “why wasn’t i good enough” has always been to look up on YouTube “call me by your name dad monologue”
because that scene in Call Me By Your Name where Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg) talks to Elio about not closing off after heartbreak and still choosing yourself is incredibly healing.
This letter and Polly's response pulled up a painful memory for me: outside a restaurant on the sidewalk when a man I had been dating for maybe half a year said 'he couldn't be with me because I didn't feel like home.' I was crushed, truly. I was intensely caught up in the relationship and always felt like I was on thin ice and in a place of trying to prove I was worth him choosing me. Years later, I now know that I needed to have stopped thinking I needed to build a 'home' that others were seeking and instead only invite those into MY home who proved they were worthy. It's so clear to me that I would never have felt comfortable in a home built for him or any other man I dated and was rejected by. I'm glad they moved on and I see it clearly now, even if it was painful at the time. Moving away from hoping to being chosen to I was doing the choosing and honoring who I am, (which I now acknowledge that I am not for most people!) has been the most healing journey of my life. It took me decades to find my way here but I'd if I could've done it back in my twenties...my thirties would have been far more enjoyable! Honor your uniqueness, accept that others are blindly making decisions about you and other people that you have no control over, and trust your path. Beautiful response from Polly as always.
How does this work when you are 37, not 23? When you *have* taken all the advice, read all the things, established a life that you try to make independent and fulfilling, when you have the cats, the home, the career, the hobbies...but also the dating apps that are literally matchless, the in-person events that yield nothing? Today I told myself that I would take myself as I am -- and I again find myself crying the way that I did yesterday. I am so tired of grieving what was and embracing what is and still feeling as though -- beyond the walls of the life I have made for myself -- I am invisible.
I'm sorry you're feeling shitty and invisible. Whatever I say will sound feeble and worthless when you're in your current state, but here's what I have: When I felt the most wretched and desperate and alone years ago, I would keep a journal by my bed and write down what I was grateful for every night. I get that this is repeated to death and won't feel that insightful. I can only tell you that I walked around thinking my life would be flat and meaningless all day and then I would cling to that exercise like a life boat. I was so lonely and sad and I didn't feel like anyone could see me or like me for any reason. But when I wrote down the good things in my life, it loosened my grip on my sadness a little. I would look at the many precious people and opportunities and accomplishments in my life and I would feel full.
I think an important turn I made, in my anxious-avoidant journey, was also to stop asking how to make people love and need me more and start asking who already needed my help. My personal experience is that the more I attune myself to others who might require my assistance and the more I dare to TRY to help, even when I feel inadequate or helpless (like now!), the more my perspective lifts and I understand where I am. I have a grasp of how my security and joy are tied to many people, and some of my most vibrant moments take place when I move outside of what I'm getting and into what I can give.
It's also crucial to exercise. I hate that part a lot. I have been resisting it lately. But it always works.
I don't love answers like these when I feel shitty. I never loved the idea of writing down my gratitude and I have never been that into "help someone else" advice as a means of addressing depression, anxiety, or even just sadness. But I feel like in my lowest state, these three things have dragged me upwards more than anything else.
If you're not currently in therapy, go. If you don't feel like you're doing that well or making any progress, find a different therapist. When your desperation seems to be coming to a peak, that's often a sign that something that's blocking you or fucking with you needs to be addressed head on and allowed to take up space. I think when despair is strong enough, the search for a partner is actually secondary to something bigger and deeper that requires time and vulnerable attention. I get that you have literally done ALLLL of the things. Don't think that I don't hear that. But I also hear despair that needs direct and gentle attention. This grieving goes beyond a search, and if you can dig into it and feel it and be present to it, change will happen.
I'm sorry that this is so hard, sincerely. Sending you love.
Also it is a funny thing. Yes, I have done those things, but as someone else has replied, these things are practices rather than life rafts. I'm learning about consistency and what it can yield.
Yes! I think when you cling to the life raft and then drag it out to the shed and say "Okay I feel pretty good, hopefully I'll never need this again," that's a way of disrespecting your body's fluctuations and dishonoring the essential sadness and also joy and unpredictable nature of being alive at this thrilling and also very dark time. I think the practice of getting into the life raft whether you need it or not, as often as you can, and saying "I will always be human and need more than I can stand" and "My softest and most fearful sensations are also magnificent and brilliant when I respect them," then you're acknowledging that there is no finish line, the process of confronting your terror and also your joy will continue, and we ALL struggle through SOME of this alone no matter who else is around.
(I'm not trying to bleak on that front, of course. But as a writer with a sometimes unstructured life, I'm forced to face stalling and lows and existential despair by myself many days a week. I mean, it is definitely REASSURING to occasionally ask to be heard, or to process something with a friend or my husband. I just think that a big chunk of the struggle is private no matter your circumstances, but particularly if GRAPPLING with thoughts and feelings is part of your daily work.)
Respecting and honoring the fact that sadness and anxiety and even loneliness will return, and letting that be the normal trajectory of a life instead of something that shame and self-hatred latch onto, is definitely a daily practice. We're trained to put all lows and battles behind us however we can, so when bad feelings bubble up we think we're fucking something up or there's something wrong with us. Sure, it's out of step with the culture to keep a life raft in the middle of your house (metaphorically!) and reach for your vulnerability every day and meditate in a way that encourages tears and surrendering to uncertainty. But I think in a way some of this discussion is about actively accepting and embracing and enjoying how out of step we are naturally. It doesn't have to feel bad. You could say it's an obstacle to love, but when you stumble on people who understand what it means to choose and enjoy that path with an open heart, what you tend to find is true attunement and mutual support.
I also want to say that as you get older, even if you know half married people and half single people like I do, most of your close friends are going to recognize and appreciate and respect the fact that friendships can be more soulful than marriages in many respects. It's widely recognized among smart women over 45 that romantic love doesn't deliver every dimension of intimacy a person requires, and close platonic friendships can also be wildly romantic. Bringing that belief and conviction to other people, even nonverbally, will get you faintly rejected repeatedly lol but when it lands, it really lands. Even some of my flinchier/ flintier/ more avoidant friends have drawn closer as they understand how important it is to honor your truest soulmates on the planet.
It takes a goddamn village, is the point, a village of freaks, and you can't stop short of that, even though putting your ass out there is painful. Noticing people who really, truly love and need you is not easy for those of us who had avoidant parents. We don't like being needed. And tolerating the avoidants is also sometimes necessary, because a lot of them secretly need us, too.
Anyway, these are all life rafts. Reaching for the raft can feel humiliating and painful. We're taught to believe reaching for deep connection is pathetic when it's not reciprocated. But it's a lifestyle, honestly, and when you have strong boundaries in general you don't sacrifice your dignity as much or allow shame to crowd out the gifts of being someone who is willing to humbly ask for what she wants, and willing to humbly look at her enormous desires without shame, and willing to respect those desires and treat them with love and acceptance every day, through every storm.
Okay this turned into a treatise! LIFE RAFT! Amanda, we are with you. xoxo
Yeah same! And I have been learning to be OK with imperfect practice. Like, if I can't do something every day but I can do two out of three, that's OK. Or one out of five days. I used to really struggle with all-or-nothing thinking about habits but as I get older it's easier to embrace consistent inconsistency, if that makes sense. I can be slightly erratic but still committed.
All of you guys are awesome. Heather, KL, Tara. Thanks for making me feel seen :)
I totally get it, I’m a bit older than you, and also single.
But the one thing I have learnt - expecting your life to always feel fulfilling, and to look for one day where you will settle into it once and for all without any more grief, that’s an illusion. It’s like the single version of the Prince Charming fantasy. One day will come where I will live happily ever after (by myself). And you tend to take every day of tears as a sign that something is missing, happily ever after has not arrived.
I think asking what does my body want today means accepting the answer - it wants to sit in pyjamas, cry, eat a lot and be grumpy.
And at some level be like - wow! I get to do this! Don’t have to force myself to go meet my partner’s friends when I would rather be grumpy!
This made me smile. Grumps united!
Yes, one thing that is sooo nice about not having a partner is the ability to move at my own pace. That is a huge factor that has always been a struggle for me in relationships but I haven't been able to articulate until recently. It's always been easy to pinpoint individual moments but the bigger picture, the constant and ongoing nature of it is where it's at for me.
This is so great. It's funny because I was recently reflecting on this exact thing: I realized that if it were my choice, I would slow everything down and turn all of my social interactions into half conversation, half guided meditation. That's kind of a joke, but I recognize lately that, while I don't mind being AT SPEED necessarily, when I imagine slowing everything down, I understand what I really want from socializing and connecting: I want to be moving slow enough to see people clearly, to really hear their words, and to think before I speak. This is also true in my work life. I want to do slow, high-quality thinking more -- somehow without losing my forward momentum, which is the challenge.
So much of our lives together is so cacophonous when what we really need is half shared meditation, half dance party with zero talking. Jesus I am really turning into a hippie.
I don't know if this helps, but there are people stuck in bad relationships who feel even more invisible. Not just invisible but deleted, because there is an intimate partner erasing them within the walls of their own life.
I'm not trying to minimize your grief or tell you how to feel--the frustration is real. But the solution the original LW has in mind (being in a committed relationship) is rarely an actual solution. The book Polly is reccomending (Banal Nightmare) has close-up portraits of several of those relationships.
thisssssss. like, not even terrible relationships! Just ones with people they don't wholly respect and have not ever really felt STOKED by, but stay with because they wrote a pros and cons list and the pros outweighed the cons.
(or because they FEAR being alone)
The loneliest place in the world is in one of those!!
Invisible to whom, though? Men/women as a category (whichever gender(s) you're interested in)? Specific people you're interested in? Invisible to yourself? Invisible to capitalist patriarchal society which tells you there's something wrong with you if you're not in a relationship?
If you feel like you're missing out, read the relationship advice subs on Reddit and thank your lucky stars you don't have to put up with all that crap. Then r/singleandhappy for some inspiration. Sure, good relationships can be good, but bad ones can literally ruin your life.
"...it is definitely REASSURING to occasionally ask to be heard, or to process something with a friend or my husband. I just think that a big chunk of the struggle is private no matter your circumstances..."
This. One hundred percent. I offer what will probably feel like the coldest of cold comfort, but anything less than actual hugs and a gallon of tea (I'm English) won't be enough, I know. I'm married thirtysomething years now, and was so TUNED OUT back then, I literally don't know what happened to get me & my wife together. What I do know is, life since then has often felt like I fell into a pinball machine next to someone who seemed pretty familiar with how to be a ball, and who was amazed I could have so little idea and yet be alive. She's still in disbelief sometimes, believe me.
I must've brought something to the party, though, right? Well, it wasn't my cute ass, let me tell you. And it wasn't money. I'll spare you the rest of the list of my non-accomplishments. I have an idea now, years later, and btw I'm abandoning modesty at this point just for a sec. It was my mind. I'm no philosopher, but I had some sort of raw "life of the mind" and I wasn't shy about sharing it. And that, I think, is what I brought, unknowingly (everything I did back then was unknowing). She was surrounded by ass but not by reflection or fascination or any desire to understand things or art or express thoughts much beyond "I love that/I hate that."
@Li asks, invisible to whom? Specific people/yourself/our patriarchal society? That feels to me like the right question. I would just add that visibility, whatever it actually is, comes and goes. There are times, plenty of them, when I feel invisible again. I'm feeling that now. I think it's probably necessary; full visibility, all the time, would kill most relationships. It's not about "keeping the mystery alive", it's about being able to BEAR another person fully. Not possible. You feel invisible now; that sucks. You deserve to be visible. I have sympathy but no advice beyond maybe try to tune out? Easy for me, who had never tuned IN, who grew up in an age free of shitty social media. Tougher now; there's so much NOISE that needs tuning out of our consciousnesses before we can see ourselves & others honestly. So little of what we see of others, of what they tell us about themselves, can be taken as "true". This isn't about lying so much as self-deception. Whistling in the dark.
Maybe some of this is relevant to the original LW, who said, when her girlfriends ended relationships saying they weren't ready for a relationship and then moved quickly into a relationship, that all the photographs, birthdays, holidays & public affection "[felt] like proof that the relationship was possible." Maan, I totally get that. But LW, you know it really wasn't proof. Not about you, or your relationship with her. And thinking it was - and drawing the conclusion that there was therefore something wrong with you - is plain old beating yourself up. Ugh, the photographs, birthdays, holidays. All on social media, right? Go straight to Put Your Phone Away. This is people interacting with the most toxic regions of modern culture - if you can even use that word to describe something so dispiriting - in exactly the way that that culture intends them to: spreading envy and unhappiness. Because what do people often do when they're envious & unhappy? They buy stuff. Back in the day, it was sleep that was "the balm of sore minds, chief nourisher in life's feast"; now it's stuff. And, while I'm in Shakespearean mode, Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Polly'!
Hi letter writer! I'm 30 and in the same boat - I dated multiple people and we ended things immediately before they met their now life partner. I even joked with one that based on my pattern he'd find the love of his life pretty soon after (and he did!). Now almost all my friends are partnered and I'm single, under-employed and living with my parents. It sucks!
I thought after doing "all the work" my person would finally appear, but it didn't turn out that way. Instead of doing what I was "supposed to do" what helped me is doing what I WANTED to do. To tackle the crap stopping me from following my messy heart and chaotic mind instead of trying to corral it into being the shape I wanted it to be. Some days what I want is to cry in the car about the fact that nothing turned out the way I worked towards. Some days I relish the fact that I have amazing friends and get to find new paths.
You don't have to be positive all the time. Let yourself be angry at the unfairness. Wallow, grieve, complain, follow bad instincts (but not in a way that actually destroys your life or hurts you long term - scream along to a song don't scream at people).
And then get up and try the next thing.
You got this <3
Ooh, Polly, you are in a lucid frame of mind today. Reading this felt like taking a lovely long bath.
“Stop doing weird, random math that disrespects you”
Oof, this line hit so hard. 💜
I’ve been on the other side of this (being the person they went steady with after a turbulent, whirlwind relationship with someone else), and I calculated that this meant that I was the boring, safe option. But this is still weird, random math that disrespects everyone involved including myself, just that the equations are different. Thank you, Polly!
Oh hell yes. Life could be so much weirder!
It really needs to be weirder. When I'm in a phase when I'm very good at honoring and respecting myself - which includes not blaming myself for very bad days - I start to feel inspired to bring more weirdness into the world and encourage more weirdness to blossom.
Ok I have a thought about what you are saying and I'm not sure if I can express it but here goes....I'm starting to realize that when I find myself falling into rabbit holes (internet content or being angry or worrying about horrible possibilities) it's because my brain is seeking some kind of stimulation or novelty. But then the best way to actually GET that novelty is to apply that dissatisfied, seeking energy to my creative practices. When I bring my worst feelings to my art I get the best results and surprise myself with honest weird shit. Or sometimes if you really give your full attention to one other person, you can be surprised by their weird shit too. Those times when we are playful and brutally honest and not following scripts are the times when things get the most weird and stimulating. The times we embrace the "bad" and the "good" and the "strong" and the "weak" and see it ALL as the worthy material substance of whatever we are playing with. Thoughts and physical objects become more real and more interesting, but also I am holding them more loosely and can do fun things with them.
Now I'm thinking about the Orcas who wear dead fish hats and blow up sunfish. WEIRDOS!
And to loop back around to the letter, I would also like to be able to honor the things in my life that feel like "curses" and make them part of my play. Your advice that we can only glimpse one little part of something and the rest is a mystery is very helpful to me right now. Knowing that the art will never be sufficiently explanatory actually gives me permission to make the art.
Yeah, I love all of this. DEAD FISH HATS. lol. Unfortunately, I think I've been in the practice "use the bad" and "welcome the ire" so much for so many years that if these sensations aren't vibrant enough I stall out and wonder "Have you lost it? Is it all over?" Another example of how our brains like to tell us "THIS IS ALL I'VE GOT, BUDDY!" when our bodies, hearts, and spirits are saying "Trust me, there is a deep ocean under all of this, and it's murky and strange and you just need to take the time to dive the fuck in and surrender your stories to these mysteries and paradoxes. We are blowing up sunfish every few seconds down here. Put on a fish hat and settle in."
I absolutely agree about curiosity and novelty. I think our phones are so full of the same terrifying but boring shit every day that we're ravenous. Respecting how bored I am and feeding myself more great books and more time to read them has been the story of this year for me. And also great movies, great songs. Anyway, thanks as always for your very smart and insightful input, KL!
If only I had gotten this memo forty years ago.
So beautifully bizarre to wake up to this post when I'm going through something so similar. Kinship is just around the corner it seems!
also another companion piece that got me through these similarly messy feelings and thought traps of “why wasn’t i good enough” has always been to look up on YouTube “call me by your name dad monologue”
because that scene in Call Me By Your Name where Elio’s father (Michael Stuhlbarg) talks to Elio about not closing off after heartbreak and still choosing yourself is incredibly healing.