Introduction - Relationships

[luckycanuck]

I finally got to work out.  It wasn't at the gym, it was on the beach.  In barefeet and boardshorts, I ran north from where our street meets the beach to the entrance to Narrabeen Lagoon.  It was shallow today, so I waded across in ran the last 20 metres to the headland at North Narrabeen, and then ran back again, following that up with a swim.  (I've made a tradition for myself.  Since coming to Australia, I have been for a swim in the open ocean every calendar month, without fail.  Even in winter I've manage to get fully submerged in the ocean.  Once in June I had to drive an hour and a half to swim off the Gippsland coast in Victoria and got some very strange looks from fishing locals and tourists on a Sunday afternoon.  My November 2009 swim is out of the way early, and it probably won't be the last.)  It worked out to probably over 5km on sand, which makes it much tougher.  My lower back and calves got the best of the work.  My calves are still sore, though the swim gave me a nice chance to cool my overheated muscles.

Last night I did something quite out of character by going to a goth night that Ma Cherie Zoologiste (so named because of the menagerie of animals on the dashboard of her car) was attending.  It wouldn’t normally be my scene, and it wasn’t my scene last night. (I’m not sure it’s really been MCZ’s scene for a while for that matter, but it once was and she did have friends there.) The music was loud and the singer in the industrial goth punk band (I had to ask for help in describing the genre) seemed to like to scream at us that he hoped we would die. The din was quite overwhelming at times, and being out of my element meant the noise and crowding and overstimulation brought out my asperger’s. I found it difficult to make eye contact with strangers, I went into screensaver mode and avoided talking to anyone. Luckily we wound up in a space where I was able to keep a low profile without hampering MCZ’s socialising.

Under the normal run of things I wouldn’t have gone, but I did enjoy myself in spite of the aspie stress of being outside of my element in an aggressive environment. This wasn’t the normal run of things. We had some mutual friends going, but mostly I went because J was going.

It has been a long time since I was looking to get involved.

I was a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to relationships. I met my first girlfriend at the age of 20, and Wendy and I wound up getting engaged in our early 20s. On one level or another I had my doubts, but I had never been in a relationship and with no frame of reference I had a hard time imagining any other way for things to end aside from us getting married. Almost exactly six months before the day, she called it off. It saved us both from making a big mistake. That’s not to criticise either of us, but we are both better off now than we would have been had we married the wrong person.

At the time it was hard to imagine ever getting involved again. It was the only relationship I had ever known and it was over. At the age of 24 I was convinced that was it for me.

Of course, I did start dating again and eventually met Lisa, an Australian girl, whilst living in London.  She and I wound up living together and we had talked about moving to Australia together, but we split up just before I left London. She is now living with the guy who lived in the next room of our share house. (Something that I can’t manufacture outrage about.)

After Lisa and I split I spent some time newly arrived in Sydney feeling lonely. Not for the first time, most girls I met were sized up within minutes as I imagined a future with them. It was how I operated. I couldn’t seem to get involved without expecting that every girl would work out for the long term. I suppose seeing my parents who have been married since 1974 and my sister who is happily married with two daughters gave me an example to emulate. It had scarcely occurred to me that whilst they were happy, emulating them simply because that was the example they had set was a bad idea. I had spent so long trying to make something happen without regard to whether or not I was the least bit suited to it, either specifically or generally.

After being in Sydney for about six months, I met Jane one Friday evening and we spent the next two years in and on and off relationship. We were right for each other in many ways, but it seemed that everything was a struggle.

When Jane and I split up I was 30, and I had spent the whole of my 20s trying to make a permanent relationship happen. Actually being calm about being single was something that I had never given much thought to, and it was something that (for lack of a better word) I had to train myself to be.

And so for the last two years I’ve learned how to be single. Most people seem to learn this through the normal process of growing up, but I didn’t. It’s given me a chance to work out a lot of things about myself, and has made me less angsty and neurotic in general.

Which brings me back to MCZ. It’s been a couple of months since I met her at a party with mutual friends. Once upon a time I would have immediately gotten myself into long term relationship leading to marriage mode. I’ve stopped doing that. In fact I’ve been quite cagey about getting serious about anyone, and I still am. My instincts have gone from enthusiasm for getting involved with anyone, to reticence towards getting involved with anyone.

But for the first time in a while, I am involved. No freakouts, and no imagining where we will be in ten years time, but I’m in a relationship all the same. That means I find myself on unusual ground for the first time in a while, for more than one reason.

Hooray for unusual ground!

Comments

[bakerypenguin.livejournal.com]

Unusual ground is good. Unusual ground can lead to unusual places!

[luckycanuck.livejournal.com]

And these unusual places don't freak me out the way they used to.