It’s funny how a simple yet very deep and complex lyric from a classic Three Dog Night song can spark inspiration at 2 in the morning. As a matter of fact, it’s funny how ANYTHING can spark inspiration at 2 in the morning. The whole accord is sheer fucking irony if you ask me but, I’m up at 2 am after going to bed at a decent time so let’s get this show on the road shall we? Every now and then I’ll have these random bouts of insomnia that often come out of nowhere but are usually the result of being very anxious and restless. So what’s eating at me this time you ask? It’s the same thing that’s been eating me for almost an entire year and I honestly, I can’t believe I’m about to write another blog about it too. I probably sound like a broken record with all of these blogs about dating and what not but recently it’s all just reached a peak, it also doesn’t help that next week will mark one year of my heart getting ripped in many pieces. Me panicking at 2 am seems very well within the realm of possible scenarios that can happen to me along with some chick on an online dating site trying to hustle me out of $200, someone trying to rope me into a pyramid scheme or, some pseudo Christian cult that’s really a pyramid scheme with a dash of religion trying to recruit me but, those are all stories for another day.

So you’re probably wondering how failure to find someone who’s willing to give lucky bachelor 200,000 a chance warrants a bout of insomnia at 2 am. You’re probably trying to wrap your head around how ANYTHING can warrant a random bout of insomnia at 2 am let alone something as simple as dating woes. I wish my dating woes were simple but they’re not and sometimes, it sounds so ridiculous that confiding in people about is pretty difficult. I wonder how anyone would react to the fact that this weighs more heavily on my heart than it does on the heart of others. Every time I’ve ever ranted about this in high school it always ended with “get over it” or “man the fuck up”. I guess I’m not society’s definition of a real man since I’m a 28 year old guy sulking about this shit at 2 am. I guess the key phrase in this 2 am rant is “bachelor 200,000” because I’m so far down the list of eligible men that people either got tired of waiting for me and settled for someone else or, they just gave up all together. With every rejection or failure to connect with someone, I feel like the black jelly bean, the jelly filled donut, the yellow starburst or, the side of white rice that comes with a meal. Some days I feel like the last person anyone would date. It’s not that I think I’m a bad person because I know I’m not, I’m just tired of being that kid that gets picked last for a kickball team both figuratively and literally. They’re not joking when they say nice guys finish last.

This is probably the part where you say “well why don’t you just get yourself some confidence” or “you gotta love yourself before others can love you”. It’s easy to say something like that when your heart hasn’t been dragged through the mud. It’s easy to say something like that when your heart hasn’t been run over by someone drinkin’ and drivin’ an 18 wheeler as Drake would say. Being on the spectrum and dating is about as difficult as trying to beat Turbo Tunnel in Battletoads, it’s possible but you gotta bring out the masochist in you in order to endure such torment. I’m now in this difficult bind where when I find single women, it’s hard for me to connect with most of them at an emotional level where dating is possible and when I do find women I truly connect with, they’re either in a committed relationship or they’re not as excited about me as I am about them. This bitter cycle has left me so emotionally worn that I wonder why I even love in the first place. They say love is beautiful but as I mentioned in a prior blog it fucking hurts, like crazy voodoo priest rips out your heart and sets it on fire kind of pain. The emotional investment has left me very numb and yet I’m back at it again, like the masochist trying to beat Turbo Tunnel in Battletoads or the masochist trying to beat Contra III, the masochist trying to beat Aladdin on the Sega Genesis, the Masochist trying to beat Toy Story on the SNES/Genesis or, the masochist trying to beat all of the Dark Souls Games. I’m all of those masochists and many more but some days, I wish I could just sit back and let life happen.

I was recently talking to an ex (no not the ex that has inspired a bulk of this year’s blogs but another, one where the break up felt more mutual). I asked about her dating life she said everything was going well but, when I dug a little deeper I realized that she’s at the point where she doesn’t need anyone. Some days I wish I could get to that point emotionally but, that would require a severe emotional numbness that I’ve yet to achieve. I should also mention that she too has had her heart dragged though the mud on many occasions, I should also mention that I am a couple of those occasions. I made a lot of horrific decisions when dating her, ones that involved me thinking only of myself and not her. Despite my best intentions I hurt her pretty fucking bad and in ways I told myself I’d never hurt anyone. I never learned true selflessness until my second relationship but towards the end, I ended up at the other end of the double barreled sawed off shotgun we call karma. To get back on topic, I wish I could reach a point where I don’t need anyone but that seems to be pretty impossible with the way my heart works.

For as long as I can remember, my heart has always yearned for companionship. From a very young age there has always been a void in my heart, like something was always missing. It’s like trying to complete a puzzle only to realize that you’re missing the last piece and man does it frustrate the shit out of you for a very long time only, you never really move on and you’re always hung up on that last piece. Nothing you fill that void with will ever be that missing puzzle piece. I thought I had found that missing piece and I had never felt so complete. It turns out that piece belonged to another puzzle, it just happened to fit mine similarly but not well enough. I’ve tried everything in the book that wasn’t self destructive to fill that void. I played tons of video games, I hung out with friends, I made a fuck ton of new ones, I acquired new and very expensive hobbies, I tried new restaurants, I started praying more. No matter what I’ve done, I just can’t seem to fill that void, it’s an emptiness I can’t satisfy. Now within my religion they say that we fill that emptiness with the spirit but, with me taking religion so literally and having trouble trying to feel and get in the moment (read the blog “Leap of Faith”), that in itself has created its own set of problems. As a matter off fact, both problems are two parts of the same coin.

I guess what this 2 am rant is trying to get to is, what is my purpose in life? Where will this all lead? I’m sick of always getting hurt and worked up over the same fucking issue and yet I’m not tired of writing about the said same fucking issue. I just love too hard for my own good and man does it hurt. I just want all of this to actually make sense. Nothing makes sense and it frustrates the shit out of me. I wish my mind didn’t try to constantly rationalize this and just accept the fact that I might be single for a very long time, maybe the rest of my life. Maybe I’m not meant to fulfill my dreams of finding love or one day having a family, maybe I’m meant to ride solo, maybe player two will never insert a coin or press the start button to join in. I don’t know, I just wish I could know now instead of later instead of always getting my hopes up for nothing. I wish I had better things to write about than my troubles with dating but then again, you wouldn’t get a really awesome blog that was written at 2 am. The two relationships I was in never really worked they way I wanted them to. The first one, the rocket ship tried to launch but it just couldn’t get off the ground. The second one shot for the stars and blew up like the Challenger on a bad day (too soon?).

Being single sucks but being in relationships that don’t work hurt way more and is a horrific waste of time. Both ways it all hurts and trying to cope with this isn’t very easy but then again, what in my life has ever been easy.  I seem to be my funniest when I’m frustrated, anxious, or sad so maybe I’m meant to always be this frustrated, anxious or sad for the good of others. Being that cool single uncle with a nerd castle that has tons of the video games can’t be that terrible can it? At least we know whose house my nieces and nephews will always beg my siblings to visit but who knows. Unfortunately I’m not the one writing this story and every time I try to take that magnificent fountain pen to make some corrections, I get stabbed in the leg and the story is written in a trail of my own blood. Talk about irony of course, this is the same irony behind me writing a blog at 2 am. I’m not looking for pity with this post, I’ve never really needed anyone’s pity. I just want people to understand what I endure and know that the people who mope about being single have good reason to. You’d be surprised how often we hear “there’s plenty of fish in the sea”. The correct phase should be “There are plenty of fish in the sea but, 99% of them will run away from you and only one will ever find you suitable”. If you’re in a relationship then you should NEVER take that for granted because some of us have endured massive Legend of Zelda sized dungeons just to have what you take for granted every single day. I don’t think people realize it but, being single is pretty difficult in the age of social media. Imagine seeing four marriage proposals on your newsfeed in one day. I saw a post that stated “being a hopeless romantic in a hookup culture is a special kind of hell”, damn straight it is, like 9th circle level bullshitery. Stay classy everyone and hopefully I’ll fall the fuck to sleep.