i am one of those people who tend to utilize YouTube as a podcast medium, as opposed to a visual one.

In the midst of doing chores i was listening to a recently-uploaded interview/performance from Massachusetts-based band, Converge; and as with most things i listen to, i began reflecting upon my life.

While i tend to welcome getting older, it’s always strange to see my peers, or people in my age group (who have also been in the punk/hardcore scene) experiencing it as well. There is an obvious wisdom that occurs, after many years of mistakes and life lessons; but to hear (guitarist) Kurt Ballou and (vocalist) Jacob Bannon touch on their lives as ‘family men’, that gave me a bit of pause.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Even though thoughts about ‘boyfriends’ and ‘girlfriends’ get passed around; as children those conversations tend to be vapid- at least in my mind, this was the case. Indeed, i was teased as a kid for not really pining for boys- or anyone, frankly. At 11 years old, it was assumed by classmates that i was the much-conflated combination of ‘gay’ and ‘asexual’, dispelling the notion always told to queer kids that we are all “too young to know what sexuality is.” i was eventually set up with a boy named Phillip (who looked like Wanye from Boyz II Men), and while i thought he was generally a nice guy, i wasn’t attracted to him in the ways people wanted me to be. There were also particular things he did that would have been nice and silly if we were hanging out as friends, but unappealing as ‘boyfriend material’, such as eat the whole portion of a birthday cake with my name on it.

i was happy for my classmates and friends who were ‘dating’, but it wasn’t ever something i saw for myself, based on what i saw around me.

A few years later, in high school, i developed my first crush. As a matter of fact i developed many crushes- throughout high school, throughout college and all throughout the rest of my 20s- every single one, resulting in rejection. In combination with the internalization of thinking i was stupid and worthless (since i heard that so much growing up); i also internalized that i was unlovable, since not one person i was interested in reciprocated the feelings.

i used to always be told my friends that i’d “make a good wife and/or mother,” but i never really understood what that meant, especially when the people who always told me this had no interest in me, as they were married and/or had kids themselves. i’d also have a few people tell me years after the fact how they had some interest in me; but again, they themselves tended to be in a partnership at the time of their reveal.

i always saw people seeing me as between the binary/dichotomy of a sibling/homie, or sex object. The homies never found me appealing enough to think about a partnership; and the people who saw me as someone they wanted sex with, they either didn’t see me as a friend at all, or used friendship as a means to get to sex.

While i wasn’t hateful or misanthropic regarding the subject of romance, there were times i performed what would perhaps be considered in this day and age ‘incel’ behavior, where i would continually push this futile hope onto the person i had feelings for, despite clearly knowing they were not into me. i am honestly surprised, and incredibly grateful, that those people did not push me away. They were incredibly patient with me, and contributed to a massive life lesson. i have no idea where any of them are at now, but in many ways, i am indebted to them.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

i’ve spent my life never knowing what a romantic partnership felt like.

i’ve always dreamt of having a long-term romantic partner: someone i could have massively deep and massively long, drawn-out philosophical conversations about life, politics, art- pretty much everything you do with platonic friends, except you’d spend much more time with them every day. We’d both come from our jobs and commiserate, eat together, ride bikes together… If we were not with friends or our jobs, it would be us together.

Obviously, this is the most ideal situation anyone who romanticizes partnerships can have. Some would even say it’s unrealistic. That said, i never even got a modicum of this. i’ve been in ‘partnerships’ (if you could call them that); but the primary objective was sexual- something that was not necessarily even a factor in how i ‘idealized’ partnerships.

In the midst of all the rejections there were people who were into me, however, for them it was sexual. As a matter of fact, the first person i ever went out with (when i was 19) was going okay, until it was clear things were about to turn sexual. i left their apartment, and we didn’t really talk much after that. i experienced an incident or two after that, and it led me to start feeling as if, the only way i will know what it feels like to be in a ‘relationship’, was to prioritize the sex thing. No one prioritized romance or emotional bonds at all.

i spent many years not talking about my feelings, because i didn’t know how to express them, or who to express them to.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

In my late 20s, despite seeing plenty of red flags, i asked a man significantly older than me to be in a partnership. With an extremely low self-esteem, i still figured i would receive some semblance of a ‘romantic’ relationship, particularly since he was older. unsurprisingly, i discovered immediately that his priority was also a sexual relationship. He also immediately became possessive and emotionally abusive. There are things he did that violated my trust (such as coerce me to not use a condom); and the moment he threatened physical violence, i woke up and immediately made the decision to leave him.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was 14 years before i was with someone else.

That 14 years was both by choice and not by choice. Again, no one has ever shown romantic interest in me. Anyone who has shown interest in me in that time let it be known that it was purely for sexual purposes, so i declined.

i also had to figure out who i was. i had to learn to love myself. i had to learn to like myself.

It was not until the age of 39 (interestingly, the age where the process of perimenopause began) where i first looked in the mirror (after years of not doing so) and saying, “I like myself.”

It wasn’t until the age of 42 where i said, “I love myself.” It was also the age i ended up meeting someone younger, and being involved with them. Despite me being adamant about wanting a long-term romantic partnership (and he being adamant about wanting the opposite), i still became involved with him for reasons not unlike any other time. The ‘futile hope’ still peered though.

As always in my experience, sex was primary for him. He also had patterns of wanting to break me down, then giving compliments. He also had tendencies to ghost.

He ‘broke up’ with me the day before i got hit by a truck.

He visited me in the hospital a couple of times; however, the moment i will never forget is, in the middle of telling me i’m the bravest person he knows, he asked if i was going to get fat, given my more recent disabled body. Months later (while my body was still in healing mode) i received a text from him, saying he couldn’t speak with me anymore. i felt incredibly hurt by this; after a couple of weeks though, i received that rejection as another one of life’s lessons.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

i’ve been rejected so many times in my life, i lost count. My ‘solution’ was to suffer in silence, and withhold whatever feelings i had for anyone (if at all) internally. The other thing i’d learn to do was to stay focused on whatever organizing i was doing; whatever music, art, getting tattoos, martial arts, exercise or any other project i was doing. i stayed occupied because the other choice would be to cry and lament that ‘no one likes me.’

There is such a primary focus on men when it comes to ‘grind’ and ‘work’ culture- with all of your Lex Friedman, Toby Morse and Rich Roll podcasts praising it all as a virtue of sorts; if you focus and work hard, much success will come to you. A question i have is, how much did the need to consume oneself so much in the ‘work’ have to do with a reaction to constantly facing rejection? Also, how many people who aren’t cis men experience this very thing?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________

As i was listening to Ballou and Bannon, i started to wonder, do most people actually know what this feels like? A lot of people spend their lives ‘hooking up’. Are most people who do this actually aromantic, but are conditioned in believing that before being coerced into more ‘romantic’ institutions such as marriage or long-term partnerships, one must sew their oats?

How many people get married and raise children with someone they are romantically attracted to, and emotionally bonded with- or are people married because they wanted to know what it felt like?

And even if if that is the case, why do we think marriage is the only option?

i always told myself i wanted kids, because i would treat my kids in the exact opposite way i was treated. But is that a sustainable reason to want kids?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

i’ve spent my life never knowing what a romantic partnership felt like, and to be honest, i most likely will never know what it feels like- not in the way i’ve always imagined it to be. i will most likely never experience being the parent i’ve wanted to be, specially as i am learning to live with my disabled body, which still feels relatively new, even after almost five years.

i understand that with this ‘new’ body, i am even less desirable in the eyes of society, and i have less of a desire to lament said undesirability. Frankly, i am grateful to have survived.

While i wish what happened to me on no one; it has contributed to me readjusting what desirability means, and what being in a partnership means. In these (almost) five years, there’s literally only been one person who has so much as flirted with me, and this was a person who worked at the airport in Fiji. And i know i was tired, but even though he asked me if i was married; i think i recall him even saying he was married.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

In this more recent part of my life’s journey, i am still learning about myself, and questioning everything i’ve been conditioned with… whether it’s about friendships, relationships in general, or my own body. Occasionally i still do battle the tiny “Why does no one like me?” peering from the side of my brain; however, i do have a wonderful life partner, and this experience is leading me to readjust whatever idealizations i’ve long held about partnerships, based on whatever trauma-based defense mechanisms i’ve grasped. i’ve had to do a lot of compromising, which is one of the key components in sustainability of any relationship, be it familial, platonic or romantic.

While there will indeed be people who love you (even if you don’t love yourself); you will not begin to understand the why, until you allow yourself to be loved.

Or even liked.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

There is nothing inherently wrong with having fears or doubts, for some of them are well-founded. However, when you can take some time for yourself, converge all of these fears and doubts, and let them know they have a space to exist- but they can not hoard so much space where nothing or no one else can function, then the work begins.

And we must remember, this is everyday work.

Thanks Kurt Ballou and Jacob Bannon, for inspiring this little moment of clarity.