The Game

How strange is it... How rare? You meet someone new, perhaps by what seems to be chance or fate. In either case, at least at first... everything seems to have aligned into a perfect encounter. Some strange combination of mutual attraction, infatuation, longing, and the type of excitement that -- at least in the moment -- makes you feel like a kid again. Allowing yourself to engage fully and completely in every feeling and emotion, just enjoying the moment for all its worth, for however long it may last. In this state, I allow every thought and expression of emotion to come out without reservation or hesitation. The spark of falling in love, perhaps... however short lived it may be. If you are at all like myself in these rare moments, you not only allow yourself to be fully engulfed with these feelings, but you actively resist any urges or warnings to stifle them. Forgetting yourself entirely and just living in the moment in this way is both a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately for me -- in the dating world -- everyone else has the expectation that you will at least generally adhere to the rules of the game. This is true even when the other person tells you that they are just like you and also do not play games. Also, unfortunate is the fact that most people play games without any conscious understanding of the games that they are engaging in. This game is a set of arbitrary and artificial rules and expectations set forth by people who choose to remain emotionally closed and unable to be open or allow themselves to feel without boundaries. All too often, this is where I go wrong... because I absolutely and adamantly refuse to stifle my personality and dilute myself for the comfort of others. Particularly when it involves a potential love interest. If she is unable to accept the person that I am for all that I am without my having to hide or minimize myself... it is not right and could never work in the long run. She needs to be able to accept me for who and what I am, just as I need to be able to accept her for her real and true self. This makes meeting new people and developing relationships more than a little difficult when the whole of society expects a certain mode of behavior which does not allow for or include room for anyone to be their true selves. I simply cannot ingratiate to that at all... and would not do so even if I could. It is absolutely fascinating to me that the majority of people, whether subconsciously or otherwise, seek out only the hollow fake facades of people... only to realize somewhere down the line that their Disney fairy tale version of a relationship is not and has never been real. Now they find themselves stuck with a person that they really do not know and do not love. In my case, I would much rather be the real me from the start and as immediately as possible negate any potential partner who cannot accept me for who and what I really am... all the good, the bad, and the wtf. In doing this, I know that I make my dating life much more volatile up front, but I not only save each of us a far more traumatic break up in the future when the real people eventually reveal themselves, but I also have the added benefit of retaining my dignity by staying true to myself. Not to mention the amount of wasted time, money, and effort that I save by not wasting it with someone who is not right. I am definitely in a place where I am ready to find someone who opens things up for me and touches me deeply. It has been so long since I have had that, I can barely remember the last time it happened, and I actually felt that way about another person in a romantic context. I almost said that I was desperate to find that -- and perhaps I am on some level, but I could never be so desperate for something or someone that I would sacrifice or compromise myself in order to allow a fake paper version of that ideal to force me into being something I am not or pretend to not be something that I am.