A decent mood but still not able to sleep. I'm now sitting up at nights and sleeping mornings. I suppose at least I'm sleeping; not exactly when I should be but can't have everything.
Spent the last few hours thinking about D and my reaction to her news. I guess I have weird feelings towards cheating, and casual sex or affairs generally. It's probably because I've largely been outside of dating, relationships and sex as far as the rest of society is concerned. I've spent 95% of my adult life single, never had a one night stand, affair, or quick drunken fling even. I honestly don't even remember ever being attracted to two people at once where my heart felt torn. I don't remember any interest in other women whenever I had a girlfriend. I also remember a series of events in my childhood that left me with the suspicion my dad had cheated on my mum (I was at primary school so I never got all sides of the story but that was my conclusion). That might have had a lingering effect.
So I really dislike cheating and affairs, even witnessing other people engaged in it. I realise that this is idealistic, possibly childish, maybe a result of seclusion, and is none of my business unless I'm one party in the relationship so, any time I've been around it, I've never said anything to anyone, but I have always felt bad for the other partner, whether the person cheating was male or female, friend or foe.
And casual sex I probably have a weird attitude too because I've avoided it all my life (more so been avoided by it). It wasn't offered that much, and less as I get older, but as a twenty-something I did find myself in situations sometimes where I'd basically just avoid it (and then question what kind of man I was afterwards). For a start, I don't think I have that spontaneity gene that sees someone attractive and can immediately have sex with them. I just wouldn't be turned on enough. I'd feel weird, would worry about not really knowing the other person, worry about my own feelings afterwards, etc. For another thing, I'm not that astute at picking up subtle signals so any approach to me would have had to be very direct, and that would have put me off even more. Sex for the sake of sex never excited me. Not as a teenage boy, nor an adult male, nor now. I've thought about trying to throw myself into it as a sort of means of normalising myself but the truth is that I'm not sure I'd want to. I wouldn't feel good about it and would just be doing it to not have the feeling I couldn't.
I'm not a puritan by any means and realise my peculiar feelings are a result of my lack of history. My faults are many and deep. I just have a slow heart and need my heart involved in sex. Add social anxiety and the end result is that I'm largely avoidant of sex, other than in a relationship or dating situation.
The vast majority of people aren't like this I gather. Boys, especially, are brought up with this predominant attitude of ''a boy, therefore will want sex under all circumstances, with whomever'' and if you aren't like this then something must be wrong with you. Most seem happy with that. Women, too, seem to be much the same even if they have a different stereotype to live up to. What I mean is....most people have affairs in their lives I think, and most will experience some kind of casual hook-up inside or outside a relationship, whether it's being drunk at the pub or club, or at some party somewhere, or even meeting online these days. I'm the oddball.
I spent my early twenties with a sex drive so low I questioned whether I was even straight or asexual. When I hit 30 something happened. Before, I'd had romantic attractions, they'd never been attracted back, I'd had chances to sleep with women (mostly drunken) and avoided all of them (even one women I actually cared about and was attracted to), and I'd pretty much just settled into being alone as a consequence of social anxiety, depression, unattractive, introverted mix of attributes. At 30 I was looking at myself thinking ''what's wrong with you?''. At 40, I almost felt like a dirty old man. I wasn't sexually active then (had been in my 30s) but the percentage of time I thought about sex was way up from when I was 20 years younger, despite the fact I was even less attractive as a proposition. It's as though it was mostly driven by a need to feel 'normal' and undo past wrongs.
In the last year I've started looking at dating sites; not to date (since cripplingly low self-esteem, no job, no money, no life, depression, anxiety, not too pretty,.........etc) but because there's a bit of me feels like it's something I should have done and would do if I had my life more in order. I looked at them with curiosity and a bit of envy maybe. I have to say though, they are so funny to read. I've kind of stood apart from people generally but they are fascinating to watch in different environments. I registered on one and got a message off someone about two days after the hospital visit. I had registered some weeks before and forgotten about it so a notification popped up in my email. I immediately freaked out, sent a message back about not being keen on dating and just the most negative thing ever. Then deleted my profile. I sense this is odd behaviour. Truth is, I'd been in observer mode, got a message, and then freaked as the actual prospect became a reality and I suddenly realised who I was and what was happening in my life. Obviously I can't date. I'm a complete mess.
I really don't want a future where I'm some 50-odd year old, with as much experience as the average 18 year old, and I'm just some desperate old guy. This is something I'll need to fix in my life at some point. I doubt I'll get the chance through the best way (a normal relationship that starts and then grows naturally), I'm really not keen on dating a lot or often, and visiting prostitutes isn't something I'd do nor would it really fill the need for acceptance (I can't imagine anything less sexy than paying someone to act attracted to you. I'd probably not be able to perform). So...yeah...I'm an idiot about it all. I have some weird romantic ideal and sex only really works through that as far as I can tell.
I was hurt by D and shocked by her revelations about her life but I didn't actually think I had any say in it. It wasn't like I mistakenly thought we were in a relationship. My feelings about her were that strong that if she'd added me to the web that is her love life then I'd have accepted. I wouldn't have felt good about it but that's a different thing. No, the hurt wasn't so much that her other guy was attached (if it's not me then does it matter?) but that I had a totally different idea of who she was. We'd spent a decade as close friends I thought, and I was completely honest and open with her about everything. She wasn't compelled to be the same back but I kind of feel misled a bit that she wasn't. It would have made things so much easier for me because if I knew she was having affairs a lot then I don't think I'd have built up the same attraction to her. But it wasn't because of her directly that I ended up in hospital. It was because I suddenly saw that the narrative about her being the faithful girlfriend from years back had been just that, a narrative intended to placate a man she'd briefly flirted with but had no interest in without hurting him (it'd actually have been much better). I then contrasted that in my mind with her tangled love life and felt really....subhuman is a tough word to use but that's what I felt. Then, over the course of three days drinking, it was all horrible self-esteem on that front, coupled with a feeling of being misled (even though I had no absolute right to know anything) which made me feel like a fool, always played, always vainly hoping for others. So that's why it happened. Not because I thought I'd been cheated on but because I realised I'd been thoroughly rejected on a really basic level and that I really wasn't worth anything, to her, to me, to anyone. Yes, I'm embarrassed at being so cut open by a thing which seems so juvenile but it wasn't so much that one thing as how it made me look back at myself. In retrospect, I'd been slipping for a while and had obviously put more hope into this than I was really aware. When everything got pulled away at once in such a surprising way then it threw me into a sort of shock. I've always thought I was a good judge of people and am sort of disappointed with myself that I never caught wind of this through so many years.