Being alone is better than being vulnerable.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

I did the single thing for a while. I dated, flirted, but never wanted another serious.
I had a bad breakup once, and knew I never wanted that again.
So it might sound manipulative, but with my current girlfriend, I made sure she was into me and the relationship, I waited for her to ask if we were a 'thing'. And well 5 years later I can't imagine a life without her. I guess it worked out.

Being alone is better than being consumed. That is the purpose of life, to consume one another til there is one.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

My oldest daughter, who is not much younger than you, feels the same way. Especially the "getting the cats" part. She insists that she will live in my basement with all of her cats until a ripe old age.
The hurt can leave people just devastated. But, it can make people stronger and wiser.
I don't think it's a good idea for some to be in any hurry in finding someone. You didn't say that...I was just musing. One may find that they miss their alone time.
Except the biological clock ticks more loudly for some women (you are young enough that's likely not a concern of yours).
It IS wise to be single as opposed to settling or allowing yourself to become someone's hobby. Don't stay with someone long enough to become jaded and changed to your core.
I still believe when you meet the right person it will all fall into place (hopeless romantic!) and they won't try to change you and you won't WANT to change them.
It will just be right.
I hope!

P.S. Good luck!

Each bad experience makes you more resilient. Each good experience, even if it doesn't work out, is precious because it happened to you. Most people only get one or two good ones and don't recognize them.

Walking out the experience teaches you more about yourself, the good good and surprisingly unpleasant parts.

I agree being a crazy cat lady is premature, an I get that, wow-ouchies right now. Yeah...ouch. FWIW it builds character and adds to you more than it takes away. Some people crumble and "get stuck", others pretend it never happened, some will blame their ex's clean into old age, dragging that baggage with them for a lifetime.

We're brainwashed into looking for our soul-mates, the perfect person, the twin-flame.

I disagree. I know where I'm messed up and fall flat on my face. I also know the parts I breeze thru. I'm just looking for the person who has complimentary bruises, so to speak. I wouldn't know this if life had been one long carnival ride of perfect. Call me wack, but I bring more to the relationship party now that life has biatch-slapped me around.

Everyone who's posted pretty much has mentioned , YEAH! Me too!!
Welcome to the club! We're a club of survivors who haven't given up. Pretty good company if you ask me.


Don't get me wrong, I love and have several cats, but consider this. You meet more people at the dog park than you do sitting on the sofa watching netflix with Fluffy.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: IvyNeptune

Being alone is a vulnerability. To me, it is like nails on a chalkboard in my soul sometimes. Waking up alone every morning, going to bed at night the same way, eating alone at lunchtime, the cafeteria of life passing me by, just as it did when I was a lad. I am the third wheel at the movies, either that or sitting at the back with an empty seat between me and the nearest human being.

Three years of solitude has taught me that being alone is no better than being in a bad relationship, just different to it. It certainly is not a good enough time, to discount the possibility of one day being something other than crushingly lonely.

Alone or together can be equally bad if you're unhappy. And the cure for both is accepting a certain amount of vulnerability.It's inescapable if you live on this planet.

I'm personally going through something. The catch is - is it better to do badly all by myself or with someone else? Because doing well seems fleeting and elusive. Like chasing rainbows.

But, one has to get up each day and at least aspire to rainbows. If you are chasing them with someone else, at least it increases your odds. Double the chance of catching nothing.

Ladies my PM box is open and available

On topic: I love being single, all my friends are tied down and when they're going to do some crap they don't want to do because it will start a fight if they don't, I'm having a beer in sweat pants and watching a movie.

I used to feel like I was missing out on some big secret, but I think the real secret is that sometimes choosing not to play the game is the only way to win.

originally posted by: TNMockingbird
The hurt can leave people just devastated. But, it can make people stronger and wiser

True and brings to mind the saying *what doesn't kill you makes you stronger*

I don't think it's a good idea for some to be in any hurry in finding someone. You didn't say that...I was just musing. One may find that they miss their alone time.

Yes true one needs the time to lick ones wounds, heal and reassess life.

Maybe time to change your job, new interests hobbies, move house, go on

holiday?

There was a time in my life when I needed to go on holiday, and for one

reason or another every one I would/could go with was otherwise occupied.

I told myself that I couldn't spend the rest of my life reliant on others... so I

went on my first holiday alone ... I had the best holiday ever!! on my

return family and friends kept commenting on how well I was looking, two

nights later I was dancing with David Bowie in a local club. LOL!!

*Fortis fortuna adiuvat*

It IS wise to be single as opposed to settling or allowing yourself to become someone's hobby. Don't stay with someone long enough to become jaded and changed to your core.

Good advice and less likely to happen if one takes the time and doesn't jump

into another relationship straight away/on the rebound. In a case of from the

*fry pan into the fire*

I still believe when you meet the right person it will all fall into place (hopeless romantic!) and they won't try to change you and you won't WANT to change them.
It will just be right.

P.S. Good luck!

Second that

a reply to: kosmicjack

This is the difference between a fleeting dalliance and a committed relationship.

If what you have is love, then it is not beholden to the same laws of entropy that govern all the physical and energetic interactions in the universe. It exists despite them, around them, within them, throughout them and regardless of them. If you have that, then it should not matter a God damn whether you are missing two legs and an eye, or whether your house got burned down and you lost your job, the love will remain. Love, true love, always remains, even when it is the only thing that remains. It is the only concept, the only event between two people that lasts longer than life, and does not change. It is immortal as long as both parties will it to be so.

If you have something other than it, then that is a different circumstance altogether. Unless both parties pull together, work as a pair to a single end, and nourish that love by so doing, it looses strength, becomes as mortal as the participants, at which point, it becomes something other than love, and more crucially, becomes beholden as are all other things, to entropy, the grinding reduction of complexity into simplicity. Love is not complicated, but everything else that dresses the same way it does, contains similar components, all of that stuff, that other stuff than love, is so complicated that it is easily crushed by time and entropy.

Working out which you have in your life is important when considering whether it is better to be doing badly alone, than with company. Essentially, it depends on the sort of connection you have. Is it love? Is it a complicated sexual arrangement, possibly involving co-habitation, a dog and a bowl full of fish? Is it a fair weather arrangement, or something more robust, less complex, more resistant to alteration from external forces? That is a complicated question, but one which, once answered, might give clarity to the situation.

All I know is, if I had ever had it, I would still have it, because true love is bulletproof, future proof, inviolate to a degree that nothing else in human experience can even compare to. There are materials from the oldest reaches of time, that do not have nearly the same staying power.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

Sorry for saying it, but you are too young and too beautifull to spend the rest of your life all alone with cats.

But I do understand that you prefer to be alone while feeling lonesome over being lonesome in the company of someone.

Here is what I think about retiring too early from believing in (true) LOVE:

The Blues Brothers - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (1980):

www.youtube.com...

I feel DINK is the way to go.

a reply to: TrueBrit

All I know is, if I had ever had it, I would still have it, because true love is bulletproof, future proof, inviolate to a degree that nothing else in human experience can even compare to. There are materials from the oldest reaches of time, that do not have nearly the same staying power.

And THIS!....on post-cards...

a reply to: IvyNeptune

Im getting 12 cats and dying alone.

Keep your chin up fellow member.

As a loner with two cats I don't recommend owning cats; they are the most egocentric @$$holes in the animal kingdom. I suspect they know that they will end up on Youtube and always put on a show whenever they have an audience-Women love them but they ignore me which says a lot about my personality.

Maybe if a woman dangled a bauble in my face and I playfully swatted at it I might just pass the lovable test. Until then I'm just a man with two cats. I know what it is like to be alone and when you are alone you have plenty of time to discover yourself and what you want and who you want in your life.

Don't become a crazy cat owner like me. Get out there or i'll start flinging cats from my catapult. Get it? cat? catapult? i'm making dad jokes and i'm not a father-get back into the game!

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

And when you die,

They will eat you.

a reply to: crappiekat

I'd like to believe they would eat me due to respect and unconditional love-who am I kidding they are gonna eat me because I sprayed them with Flea spray. Elephants don't forget but cats hold a grudge.

originally posted by: IvyNeptune
I am positive that I have come to the conclusion that being alone is better than letting anyone in to the point where you feel vulnerable, and subsequently get hurt.
The hurt you feel is never worth the happiness that person might bring you.

Ohhh yes it is.

I have walls up for a serious reason, and every single time I have let them down the person either f*cks you over or leaves.
people might say 'oh you havent met the right person'
no everyone is the same.

Actually, everyone is different.

Im getting 12 cats and dying alone.

Can I have your computer?

Ok, here it is...

Every single person on the planet is different.
Those of us who are seeking a long-term partner, for whatever reason, would like that partner to be as near "perfectly compatible" for us as they can be. (It's only natural to want the best for ourselves after all.)
BUT Everyone is different (remember?)... So (In my best "Highlander" voice over) "There can be only one!"...

That's right folks, One person who is 100% compatible, and therefore perfect for us.
(IF they even exist in our time frame at all!)

Now, there are 7.4 BILLION people on planet Earth, so the chances of finding that ONE person are....... Yup, fairly remote!
So, we all settle for something less than 100% (Unless we are ridiculously lucky!!)
The trick is, to work out how much compromise you are willing to make.
Is 80% compatible OK?
or 90%?... 95%?... 99%?
(Of course, we don't know the actual percentages... it's just a way of illustrating the concept of compatibility!)

In my opinion, when we decide to set out on the road to finding our life-partner, we have high hopes and higher standards! But as time passes and we fail to find "the one", we have to make a choice;
Lower our expectations, or wait it out. It's all a balancing act really.

Unfortunately, most people seem to end up settling for far too little, and end up in poor or unhappy relationships, probably because we are scared of ending up alone, on the shelf?
That's why so many relationships break down. We've found someone who "will do" but the longer you are with them, the more the incompatibilities rise to the surface, Then you get resentment, anger and the breakdown of the relationship.

So, there it is.
We are all different.
Finding "The One" is incredibly difficult.
You may have to kiss several Frogs before you get your Prince!
You will most likely have to compromise, at least a little.
Many people settle for too little and end up disappointed.
Some people wait and wait and wait.... and may end up alone.

The lucky ones get the balance right. They wait long enough to weed out all of the unsuitable ones, but don't lower their expectations so much that they end up with someone who doesn't fit the bill.

If you are happy living / dying alone with 12 cats then the best of luck to you, but then - you wouldn't have posted this thread if that's what you really wanted...



BigG

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: TrueBrit
Cats, generally speaking, love me automatically.

True Brit the real deal P-magnet.

HAHAHA

Also that cat shelf is great. Ill take 5

a reply to: Gordi The Drummer

Yea i dont believe there is only one person out there for me.
I guess i just find it such a struggle to let anyone in in the first place. So once I do and then end up hurt its like WHYYYY DID I LET THEM IN. Then I get even more gaurded the next time round. Its just frustrating.

I know Ill most likely let more people in in the future and try again. But I feel pessimistic currently thats all

originally posted by: IvyNeptune

people might say 'oh you havent met the right person'
no everyone is the same.

I kinda felt the same for a while... didn't want to get hurt, didn't want a relationship, thought it's not worth it.
But you know, there really is someone out there for everyone and sometimes in life, you have to take risks.
Things wont fall into your lap or knock on your door.

But I totally get what you're saying.

a reply to: IvyNeptune

I know many couples who have been together 25 yrs, 30 yrs and even 50 plus years.
I do fear when my beloved may die before me but the many happy shared years is still worth the coming pain one of us will live with.

I think the secret of long relationships is in screening well before you even get involved. Ask a ton of questions and if they are something you have on your (No can't live with that list), don't even go there!(I actually made a real list) I made a decision to have one date with anyone who would say yes no prejudging think of it almost like a job. it is work but worth the effort as I found gold!
Stop looking at the exterior and look deep. We love the same kinds of movies and books, we like to do the same things eat the same things play the same games.

The long term couples I know mostly have few outside friends that tend to pull people apart, they do everything together, in fact a few I have never seen without one another present.

I used to feel the same way as the OP.
Seemed that people were all a big let down from the time I was born, and I closed my walls early, emotionally.
Became a self fulfilling prophecy, really, because no relationship was going to do very well with me being emotionally closed and self sufficient.

I met my husband just a couple days after we watched the fall of the Berlin wall. It was weirdly synchronized with my own personal processes. I had had enough of struggling alone, I was a single parent and student, being responsible but with no friends or support of any kind. Proving I could, like the Little Caboose, flipping off the world in a decidedly X Gen punk rock way....until I just... couldn't any more.

Watching that wall come down, on TV with tears streaming down my face... only in retrospect do I know why now.
The protection had become a prison, and now I was being freed inside too. I need others. It is a necessity, not a luxury. Two days later I saw my future for the first time and that was it. We've been together since, and I have no regrets on tearing down that internal wall!!