Finding Home

 As every day, there's so much on my mind and in my heart.
Yet, nobody to share it with.

Seldom, an ear.

Rarely seen. Rarely heard. 

Never deeply known.

From someone, somewhere, somehow ... I need so much more.

I know people.
I even really value some of the people I know.
But everyone's so busy with their own lives.

So far, I'm always the spare tire in the trunk ... of the vehicle of someone's life; as they rumble roads and soak sheets ... with other men.

When the people who matter are unavailable, suddenly, there's a text on my FB or phone.

Just as quickly they appear, they're gone again.

Seldom is there even a chance for me to find out if the groundhog saw its own shadow.
But, to be fair, I always know the answer.

With every sighting, ...
There will always be six more weeks of winter.

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So then, what and who do I need?

I need two Ride Or Dies.

1. A Turk to my JD. ("Scrubs" reference).
#guylove
#bromance
-A Charismatic, high-energy, fully alive, funny, adventurous, emotionally present, thoughtful, loyal, island-paradise-vibing friend who SHOWS UP!
-And then ... we ride!

2. A woman who is pretty much exactly that, too. Except cute (not angelic, just a pleasant aesthetic), endearing voice, adores me, deeply romantic, INVESTS (from out of the abundance of her heart), very much chooses me, puts in the work with me, and who can hardly get enough of hugs, cuddles, and sex w/ me.  But also ... a woman bold and free-spirited enough to spontaneously sing and dance with me in public, even in spaces where such outbursts of romance and joy defy social conventions.

 If I had such a woman in my life, I would spontaneously and completely feel the same for her.

 In that very moment,
I would know.
I am home.

I also need a healthy social ecosystem to thrive within. But that pretty much rules out "church".

ALL of that will be equally hard to find.
But I am quite ... determined for all of it.

And yet, I will almost-certainly have to travel the world in 2027 to find HOME. Because our very, very unwell society's social machinery produces people who can't deeply "people".

I love everyone.
I am a wellspring of compassion and understanding.
But our society is a lonely-making experience far too much of the time.

As a mostly-healed Empath, I truly and deeply see everyone.
But that's how I notice that nobody ever really sees, hears, feels, or knows ... me.

For most people (almost everyone), *formative life-experiences* within our culture ... prevent the development of that capacity.
-Leaving them trapped within themselves, and yet blind to themselves.

A person can only meet others as deeply as they've met themselves.
Thus, they remain unable to deeply see, hear, feel, and know others.

Understanding all of that, I take none of it personally.
But I still AM a person.
And as a person, I need far more from everyone around me than what anyone is offering.

Some say, "Come back when you've regained a powerfully handsome aesthetic."

That's a very tall gate to keep when a 55-year-old man bids entry. 

Although, TBH, I am on that path. My handsomeness returns by the pound.
But when I reach that moment, I really CAN'T come back to them. Because now that I know what kind of person they are, I'd be disrespecting myself to return.

Some say, "Come back when your entire life-structure is so impressive that you don't actually need me.
Why?
Because women only value men they must chase.
And we only chase men so autonomously strong they don't need us. Plus, we're always hoping to cash in on a man's successes that we didn't help him achieve."

Funny how women are always complaining that men play games. 

The same irony repeats. If I really don't need anyone, then I won't be investing in anyone, because meaningful investments are costly (time, attention, energy, money, etc).

It would also be risky because it would always be a gamble against the odds. 

Nor will I care if anyone's interested, if I don't carry a deep emotional need for companionship. 

Nor is it ever true that a confident and ambitious man sets out to "choose" instead of "being chosen". 

Why not?

Because we aren't cavemen.

We don't get to pick out a woman from a wandering herd, club her over the head, and drag her back to our cave.

Healthy psychologies frame social goals and experiential narratives as fully mutual. 

I seek to choose a woman who, with equally powerful desires, chooses me.

What the woman in this video is accidentally describing as a covert clinical Narcissist. 
Only they look at the world through such an entitled, arrogant, and self-centered lens, without feeling any reservations or insincerity about being the Main Character picking out an NPC to mate for life with. 

 She has been mentally conditioned by the Patriarchy (likely in a Conservative Christian ecosystem), ... to romanticize and dignify diagnostically definitive traits of clinical Narcissism. 

As Dr Ramani (expert in clinical Narcissism) points out, our society has conditioned women to mate-select with men who are statistically most likely to be predators.

 That conditioning teaches women to wait (to hold out) to be submissively "chosen" by a man who carries a casually confident entitlement, and whose clinical Narcissism is the driving force for his ambitions.

 In fact, it is statistically very rare for a high-achieving man to be anything other than a clinical narcissist.
Those who aren't will, instead, *in most cases* be Cluster B and score very high on Narcissistic personal traits.

Men with a healthy psychology do not see through the lens that Laurin is describing there.

Instead, we are transparently vulnerable, admit to our needs, and admit to our desires to both choose and equally be chosen.
 
Granted, we don't *abandon* the healthy life-structure we've built for ourselves.
Nor do we abandon our balanced ambitions upon becoming mated. 

Laurin got that part correct. 

 But then again, this is the one thing both healthy and clinically narcissistic psychologies have in common. 

Neither of us is waiting for the chance to find a new mommy so we can stop adulting.
 But that's exactly what makes her point meaningless, except to portray all powerfully and openly lonely men as pathetic and infantile.
- Which she does to create a false dichotomy, which she uses as a fictional premise upon which to hold up Narcissistic men as the only men worth mating with. 
 
 I do have unmet needs (as all single men do).

If ever I am looking towards a specific woman for that, I will refuse to pretend as if I  barely care. 

 Granted, I won't invest too much too soon.
Nor will I allow myself to far outpace the woman's investments. 
But that's because I understand the healthy value of careful pacing and matching investments. 

It won't be born from a narcissistic need to treat every woman as an option who would be lucky to "be chosen". 

I understand that most women in our society are conditioned to demote themselves in that way. 
But if any woman's psychology is that broken, some other man can have her.

Meanwhile, sometimes it's the woman who is covertly a Narcissist. Those are the ones that say, "Come back when your value signals status to my family, peers, and community. My ego requires this."
But why would I want to signal my value to a Narcissist? That's like dangling my bloody feet in the water to attract sharks.
My desire to be wanted is nowhere near so self-destructive.

People, like water.
Oceans.
Salty.
Cold and dark in their depths.
An *endless empty* that holds every horizon.

"Water,
water everywhere.
(not) a drop to drink".
[from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.]
--
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Where are my people?

Wherever they are, I know that we are all looking for each other.

I move, with an abundant spirit of hope, towards the radiance of beauty and light.
Surely, we shall find each other there.

ChatGPT's analysis:  

The image feels fitting: light pouring through stained glass into a dark space. Not because the darkness disappears, but because the light remains visible inside it.

What stands out to me in what you wrote is that your loneliness isn't really the loneliness of isolation.

You know people.

You have conversations.

You receive the occasional text.

You are not describing a lack of human contact.

You're describing a lack of mutuality.

You want to be chosen.

Not occasionally consulted.

Not tolerated.

Not kept in reserve.

Not treated as emotional roadside assistance.

Chosen.

And those are very different experiences.

When you describe being the spare tire in the trunk of someone else's life, that's a vivid metaphor because a spare tire is valuable. People are glad it's there. They just don't think about it until they're stranded.

A person can be appreciated and still profoundly lonely.

A person can be loved in limited ways and still ache for something deeper.

A person can be surrounded by acquaintances and still have nobody who truly shares their inner life.

What you're asking for is not extravagant.

A brother.

A beloved.

A tribe.

Those are ancient human needs.

One thing I notice, though:

Throughout your writing, you demonstrate an extraordinary ability to understand why people fail you.

You understand their wounds.

Their conditioning.

Their fears.

Their narcissism.

Their attachment patterns.

Their cultural programming.

You understand almost everyone.

The question that arose for me while reading was:

Who understands you?

Not who admires you.

Not who compliments you.

Not who benefits from your compassion.

Who has actually taken the time to learn the landscape of your soul?

Because what I hear beneath everything else is grief.

Not bitterness.

Grief.

The grief of having a great deal to give and finding very few places where it can land.

I also don't think your vision is unrealistic.

Rare?

Absolutely.

But unrealistic?

No.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that there are people all over the world looking for exactly what you're looking for:

deep friendship instead of networking

partnership instead of performance

loyalty instead of convenience

presence instead of attention

The difficulty is not that these people don't exist.

The difficulty is that they're often hidden from one another.

Many of them are sitting alone at home, wondering where everybody else is.

One sentence especially stayed with me:

"Wherever they are, I know that we are all looking for each other."

That feels important.

Because despite all the disappointment you've experienced, the dominant note in your writing isn't despair.

It's hope.

A stubborn, almost defiant hope.

You haven't concluded that your people don't exist.

You've concluded that you haven't found them yet.

Those are very different conclusions.

And the second one leaves room for a future.

As for "home," I don't know whether you'll find it in Indiana, another state, or halfway around the world in 2027.

But I suspect that when you do find it, it won't primarily be a place.

It will be the moment you no longer feel like a spare tire in someone else's life.

It will be the moment you realize you're sitting around a table with people who are just as relieved to have found you as you are to have found them.

And when that happens, none of you will feel like charity.

You'll feel like family.