dissociatedwanderluster

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Crushes are Aptly Named

Every time I develop a crush on someone, it rapidly turns into a social experiment conducted by me, with me as the subject. I never cease to be amazed at how the veil of nonchalantness gets ripped from my head and trampled under my own feet.

My last post talked about dichotomies, and I must say, the dating arena is one where I haven't quite figured out how to face the dichotomy within myself. There is one side of me that epitomizes independence and the essence of free spirit, content (and highly motivated) to enjoy connections without contextual limitations or commitment. This is the side of me, for instance, that wants to stay at hostels in foreign countries and lose (or find) myself in people and languages I don't fully understand, in order to understand something else entirely. There is another side of me that desires something deeper, erring on the side of partnership, which is a lot to admit coming from someone who vehemently opposes social constructs. But how can someone who loves the humanities not be a romantic at heart? Both versions of my being usually crave the same thing at a base level: intimacy. And I've often found intimacy to be attached to some sort of meaning. That's where the dichotomy starts to fall apart, because meaning can be derived from any type, length, or depth of connection. I could (and will) write a post just about that. But meaning does not necessarily spark intimacy in it of itself, and my life experiences have led me to believe that intimacy is harder to come by. Maybe that's why having a taste of it makes it more challenging to be casual about.

My current crush lives half-way across the country from me in a state I don't like but in a city I think I would, given the opportunity to visit. He has dark hair and even darker eyes. Nice smile, handsome face. Funny, in the way that intellectual nerds usually are (I use that word dotingly in this scenario). A Tumblr blogger, a piano player, a dancer. A few well curated passions, a demonstrated interest in people besides himself. I won't go into specifics, there's a lot more I could say, but he kind of reminds me of myself. And, after a night getting to know him under stage lights and sheets—face to face, torso to torso, fingertips tracing patterns on skin and lips laying an imprint—I've found my mind recreating his image and his touch every chance I get. Instead of hooking up, we (or, I?) experienced a different kind of intimacy; I would argue it was a more meaningful subtype. But, not unlike other instances in my life, I find myself in a position after the fact where I continue to learn more about another person without the reciprocation of curiosity. Sometimes it makes me feel lonelier when someone is willing to give so much of themselves away without asking anything in return. I want people to know that I see them, but I want to feel seen just as clearly. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, I'm old enough to know that trying to derive one's intentions from their communication patterns often proves futile. I guess I just wish we lived in a world where things could be said or asked, nay, shouted from the rooftops without fear of some unstated commitment to a set meaning, intention, or outcome. I get why having a crush is so crushing; it's like dancing around someone without knowing the steps to the dance itself, and hoping that person will step in and save you from looking stupid.

All of this leads me back to the dichotomy mentioned above. How can my heart and mind be so easily pulled toward someone when I spend so much time with different goals in mind? Or, as a better way of saying it that is specific to this scenario, why is it so easy to let myself be affected by feelings when I am unsure what is being felt in return? To say the least, it's not very girl boss of me. I suppose intimacy is the key factor here and something I'll have to explore more as an independent variable. Once my cool exterior is cracked, it's occasionally hard to scoop the emotional run-off back inside. I don't like eggs that much, nor do I want to compare myself to one, but it seems like the closest analogy.

For what it's worth, in case the crush in question ends up reading this at some point, I do really like him. I guess I'm a bit of a sucker for smart men who can make me laugh and form a coherent sentence about their feelings, without taking themselves too seriously. I'm also a sucker for a few other things, if he feels so inclined to ask me what those are. To be honest, I'd trade a lot to have a morning like that with him again. Or maybe I'm just hyping it all up in my mind and ascribing meaning where it's not due. But if I'm being transparent, I sometimes enjoy being a hopeless romantic; that might be another variable to explore.

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Dichotomies Don't Really Exist

Dichotomy is one of those words that, when tactfully inserted into a sentence, raises one's baseline perception of the speaker to a level of at least moderate intellect. But I've come to realize that so many of us like to use it haphazardly (probably with the goal of asserting said intellect), when in reality, things are not as dichotomous as they seem.

Dismantling social norms has come to be a favorite past-time of mine. If you look at my Hinge profile, you'll see a prompt that says "Together we can...," to which I answer, "Dismantle societal norms...while eating pineapple pizza." The smarter among the Hinge swipers will understand that I am making a play at social norms in that very sentence, since the overarching idea we've been fed about what pizza should look like does not involve fruit. It's a hard reach, I know; you can find pineapple pizza at almost every pizza chain in the United States. Seems a little hypocritical to me for how much everyone bitches about it. Maybe I just identify more with Italians, if I'm being honest.

How I choose to combat the siren songs that we all seem to be marching toward in tandem is by actively choosing to reject dichotomies--at least the ones I can. Remember when they told us in kindergarten not to color outside of the lines? Well, I guess it finally dawned on me as an adult to ask, "Why the fuck not?" And since then, my life has opened up. I am not keen on "The American Dream." I do not seek to dream what has already been dreamt. And I do not seek to keep things, people, ideas, or feelings mutually exclusive when the overlap of such could result in something greater than I could possibly imagine. For a species that uses all of their brains every day (yes, the 10% theory is a myth), we could all sure do good with a bit of rewiring.

[dissociatedwanderluster]

Hi, Tumblr.

I met a boy this week. In college, my honors rhetoric teacher told our class never to use "boy or girl" to refer to anyone over the age of 18, so I guess I'll refer to him as a man. But "boy" exudes a certain child-like innocence, which I find myself consistently grasping to rediscover at the ripe age of 25.

And now, sitting in the airport for the n-th time this year, hellbent on a series of escapades where home is lost in translation and my heart is pulled in a multitude of directions, I'm writing my first Tumblr post. Which is funny, because the last time I used Tumblr was probably between 12 and 15 years ago, when I just wanted to see hot pictures and fan fictions related to pop singers and boy bands; no wonder I'm bisexual. Also, according to my rhetoric teacher, I guess they should be called man bands? Sounds a lot sexier, but also weird.

Anyway, this post is not about the man, although I'll write something more about him later. It's about what he inspired me to do. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to be a writer. I've taught writing, I've been an honors writing fellow, I've done research about writing, I've read a lot of writing. But I spend a lot more time thinking about writing, and what I want to write, than actually doing it. If you don't believe me, you can check out the notes app on my phone. And I've spent a few years trying to understand why it's so hard to put pen to paper, because expressing myself in this format is one of the things that makes me feel most alive. It's something, maybe THE thing, I'm best at. But maybe I've just been busy getting a degree in medicine. More on that later too.

When the aforementioned man told me he had a longstanding Tumblr blog, anonymous to the world and filled with his unedited thoughts and feelings, it was as if a path was instantly engineered in my mind. This conversation happened at 3:30AM, a time when nothing seems real but everything feels possible. I had no idea that Tumblr was still in existence. And when I had to leave the man the next morning, filled with warmth from a type of intimacy that made my breath catch in my throat but with an inevitable vulnerability hangover, I knew what I had to do.

I've been known to dissociate and dissociate often. It's how I protected myself from childhood traumas and how I currently protect myself from the adult ones. I also dissociate because some emotions feel too strong to deal with. Sometimes I worry the love and the passion and the anger and the sadness and everything in between might overwhelm me if I let them, because there was a time in my life where darkness triumphed. But, the truth is, I feel deeply. I feel others deeply; I always have. And all I ever want is for others to feel my depth too.

I don't want to dissociate from the feeling of this man's fingertips on my skin, or how he looked at me in the morning, even though he lives 2000 miles away. I don't want to dissociate from the memories I have of fishing as a child with my father, even though I'm scared of what his future holds. Quite frankly, I don't want to dissociate from my beautiful and chaotic life. So I've decided I'm finally going to memorialize some things. Because I think it might make the chaos a little bit easier to handle.

Thank you, RS; you may have just jumpstarted the writing career I've always dreamt of.