Modern dating is a disaster. I mean, we’ve come to create new terms like ‘situationships’ for a friends-with-benefits setting that also involves feelings, but no one wants to apparently talk about that.
I had a lot on my mind about this. It seems convenient, but it also reminded me of this Oscar Wilde quote:
A sentimentalist is simply one who wants to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it. We think we can have our emotions for nothing. We cannot. Even the finest and most self-sacrificing emotions have to be paid for.
I think… we seriously need to ask ourselves why we dislike emotions so much. I understand it’s a lot, but wouldn’t it be better for everyone involved if we were honest with ourselves up to some extent?
Vulnerability seems like a lost art. What does it take to have someone be honest with if they like you or not? Half way through working on my thesis, I realized how much we run away at the first sight of our feelings. The second there’s a feeling, that’s the moment we shut down and hope that everything sorts itself out.
How did we even get here? What led us to being so shut off? Is it the constant existentialism? The constant need to pry open the Bad Feelings and be terrified of the Good Feelings? Is it because of the capitalism-driven Individualism? It is a lot to process, but I wish much of our lives weren’t shrouded in existential dread.
It’s a bit naive to hope so, too. The world isn’t great, there’s a war and there are people justifying it, there’s just.. so much access to hate, it feels like we’re operating with a Hate ATM machine and everyone’s getting their buck.
Which leads me to how it’s so difficult finding anyone who can be honest about their feelings. It’s one thing to openly say that dating them is like a red flag, but some people are so good at being covert about their lack of feeling, that until you spend time with them, it wouldn’t hit you.
I can’t really say we have to be fully open hearted. We’re all guarded one way or another, because of past hurt. But, after a while, wouldn’t we want to be open and vulnerable and hope that someone cares for us? Every question I ask feels like there is a readymade answer: people don’t want to feel and that’s okay. But it isn’t okay!
To be so open hearted despite the hurt is amazing. It’s a good feeling. You seek out people who will mirror it but that is also unlikely when you want to puke in a dustbin when you feel anything.
It is perhaps the effects of therapy speaking — I cannot be quiet about my feelings, but I know how to moderate it. I can’t handle the way people refuse to feel though. It feels.. so uncharacteristic of being human. We should feel! It’s the (arguably) only way out of the Bad Feelings, too. If you can’t let yourself be vulnerable, how will you let the Good Feelings come in then? Human beings fascinate me, but this is a bad fascination.
I wish we were taught to be in tune with our feelings. It should be required of everyone to give themselves the space to feel, without prodding at the ‘why’ but looking at what feelings come up. Being gentle is lost, too.
I wish everyone could embrace their feelings. I promise, it’s not the worst feeling in the world. Even if it feels as such, you can get out of it if you allow yourself to feel it. It won’t magically disappear, but bit by bit it will work out.
Life’s too short to be cynical, but that’s just me.
Anyway, look at the moon today
:)
As usual, stay hydrated, be kind, and do all the things you like. I hope you tell the people around you that you’re proud of them and that you love them.
~ The Little Cat.
My answer could probably be its own TED talk if I went all out, but I will offer a pair of succinct thoughts:
This is what happens when we prize the Rational (mind) over the Emotional (heart) for several centuries, and...
We are in an "Age of the Predator," if you will. The Predators seek out vulnerability to exploit, and so many have been targeted by Predators that no one wants to be openly vulnerable anymore, as no one wants to be targeted (again).
So I'm stopping now before I go full TED. 😉