Crisis?

We were on the other side of Vistula, Warsaw…

Girl: So which level are you taking?

Me: The third one.

Girl: The first attempt?

Me: Yes, and hopefully the last. I come to think regardless of the outcome…

Girl: Will keep my fingers crossed. I wonder why haven’t I got my act together to pursue it…

Me: Because it’s a waste of life…

It was the first time when I (spontaneously) indirectly admitted kind of regretting to sacrifice between 1,000 and 1,200 hours of my life poring over the curriculum and practice exams, while this time could have been spent more productively, I mean enhancing those realms of life which I neglected to study duly. To answer whether it was worth it, I would need to know what would have happened differently, hadn’t I stuck to the self-enforced study regime.

Truth be told, after the candid conversation quoted above which took place two weeks before the exam, I felt I was totally running out of fuel. It wasn’t just about pure laziness or learning fatigue. The crisis involved a question about a profound rationale for what the life had revolved around. Despite losing heart for a moment, I didn’t falter and resolved to drown out questions prompted by one casual talk and do my best to carry the day.

Now it doesn’t take IQ of 150 to hazard a guess love-life-wise there’s been no progress over the recent year…

It never ceases to fuck me up when people tell me what I know, i.e. “find yourself a girl(friend)”. The sentence sounds as if girls were lying on the streets and I were refusing to bow down to pick one up. The key reason why such comments incense me is that I see lots of fantastic girls around, yet they have one (let’s call it this way) drawback in common – they have boyfriends or husbands. I may be wrong, but I don’t blame the fate of bad lack, but perceive it as example of natural selection taking place in the nature. While I was climbing up the education and career ladders, other males have been chasing the most valuable females (not in terms of skin-deep beauty, but in terms of traits, character and other things that are sought and considered when choosing a lifetime companion), now I see single leftovers which broadly fall into three categories:

1) wacky girls scaring most men (including me) off – such as those which I tried to date in 2013 (oddly enough, girl 5 turned out to be really OK and until today we are good friends, while I have even no idea whether the other five girls are still alive),

2) single, far too independent women leading lifestyle totally different than mine, so for parties any relationship is a no-go-area, since both parties realise this would be a perfect mismatch,

3) valuable girls or women, however unsociable, shy, too often to clammed up in their shells to break out of many years of loneliness.

The very last group gives a glimmer of hope, yet approaching the unapproachable requires some determination, patience and care… Hope the hopes have not been dashed.

The question which quite naturally comes up in this reasoning is where to find that girl, if girls don’t lie on the street.

1. Accosting girls which catch a boy’s eye on the street, although some lads dare to do this, is, as I believe, not the advisable suggestion. It takes a lot of courage plus you risk being taken as a pervert or a desperate.

2. Getting to know friends of friends during parties has limited chances of success for two reasons: 1) number of people who are single declines as they age, 2) the people you meet are most often same people you have met via your friends along the way.

3. At work – I’d spare a thought on this one, might come into play only if your duties absolutely do not overlap, i.e. you don’t interact professionally. Otherwise don’t go there (tried out)…

4. Signing up for a language or other course with a purpose not to learn something, but to meet someone – saw some examples of people around 30 doing this and I don’t want to follow that path…

Plus there are many other occasions when you may run across that person out of the blue. One such incidence was the nuptials ceremony I attended three weekends ago. Outside the church I ran across a girl I’d known by sight. I felt like talking to somebody… Three hours later I was driving her home… After the dialogue quoted at the top of this post her telephone rang. Her boyfriend was calling to make sure she was alright, since she’d been supposed to get home some time earlier. Well, par for the course, to good to be single. Of course, some of you would argue this situation was not as straightforward as it should have been and you’d be right. I could also come up with a few comments on the whole situation, but if silence is golden, let it glitter.

I’ve heard advice to wait. Some relationships fall apart and this fact could be viewed as an opportunity. For some reason I see around very few pairs breaking up, so waiting for such miracle looms as dead-end street.

Only life-wise…

With friends I’ve learnt to keep my distance. Overwhelming majority of them are with their partners for a long time, some have got married, some even have offspring. Their privacy deserves respect; what was allowed some time ago no longer applies now. Upshot – loosened friendships, less frequent meetings and on top some ambiguous situations along the way I wish I had avoided…

At work – I’m sick of my closest colleagues being from a different planet. I can’t put up with people who are unsociable and treat fellow people with disdain. Spending 40+ hours per week with guys who you (reciprocally) dislike is unsustainable in the long term, no matter how much you enjoy what you do at your job.

Oddly enough, there is one person who I don’t feel affinity with, yet who has given me food for thought how not to end up. The boss of my boss, woman in her early 40s. Well-travelled, well-read, intelligent, good-looking, single, with no exorbitant expectations and off-putting attitude towards men, which decrease her tiny prospects of finding a partner to near zero. Obsessive working during evenings, weekends and days off are a hideout from emptiness and prospects of solitary old age. A serious warning to me, do anything not to end up like this…

Recently it occurred to me nothing I have is truly mine and there is no place where I actually belong. The missing piece is a sense of stability, a feeling somebody cares, a little confidence if something good happens, it will last longer than a moment. Since I finished studies I lived through several moments of happiness, the only problem they came and went, happiness virtually lacked sustainability. I could reach and grab it, I could make the most it, yet could not hold on to it…

Whoever thinks these are signs of depression, dead wrong you are. Depression is when it seems to you there’s no point in rolling out of bed. In turn I want to get up from bed and have more energy and lust for life, yet I miss making use of it in a way which makes sense, not jumping into the flames out of rush of adrenaline.

Hope the weather turns for the better. With this heat and humid air we had in Warsaw last Sunday and this weekend even a bike ride doesn’t give pleasure. This year my tolerance for heat severely dropped (yesterday and today I broke sweat even when sitting idle).

Next post in two weeks (off to Mazury for the next, for me longer, weekend).