The Big Picture.
It's not something I do a lot of. I have very little to feel bad about. By most metrics my life is in a good place. I make OK money at a job I like and in which I am basically my own boss. I have no debt, and very few obligations. I have no legal troubles. I'm in about as good a place health-wise as can be expected for someone my age who has put his body through what I have mine.
The one metric that would be rated a "fail" on most people's life list is relationships. To family, friends, the opposite sex. 99 out of 100 days I feel like I've made the correct choices in this regard for me. For the most part I prefer to live a solitary life free of most human "entanglements". I know the rest of society might consider someone like me a "social outcast" but all of these choices are my own. San Francisco is a pretty social city...if my main goal was to have a bunch of friends and a GF and strong family bonds I have no doubt I could pull that off.
But would I be any happier?
It's been 4 years since I've had anything resembling a female relationship. Before that it had been another 3 years. I'm 45 and can count the "serious" relationships I've had on one hand. What got me thinking about this tonight is the one before the one before.
Rebecca.
The one that got away. That she got away is not the point...I let her go. I stopped kicking myself for that decision, and came to terms with it years ago. "Better to have loved and lost..." really true in this case. I learned a lot about myself, and a lot of how I live now is based on that 6 months. I'll always have a soft spot for the time we had but in reality I know I see through rose-colored glasses now and there's a reason I let her go. In any case this post is not about rehashing a romance from 10 years ago.
What got me on the mild self-pity train tonight is remembering how cool it can be when a relationship, a friendship really works (and when we worked, it was great). Having someone to come home to every night who accepts you for who you are, even if that someone is a self-absorbed anti-social prick. Someone who, when something happens during the day they're the first person you want to talk to about it. A partner in crime. And not to be diminished, a willing sexual partner, for fuck's sake.
So I haven't had a real family in 25 years.
Haven't had a true friend in 15 years.
Haven't had a girlfriend in 4 years.
Haven't gotten laid in 1 year, 2 months, 14 days, 17 hours...
I kinda miss all that, 2 or 3 days a year. So the question becomes, is this the year I make an effort to change this? Do I start re-directing some of the effort and resources I funnel into Vegas trips (ah, you knew there'd be a connection here somewhere, right?) and actually try to put together something resembling a life here in SF? I've dallied with this notion in past posts and the next post usually details the booking of another Vegas trip.
The nights I spend in the house saving up for the next inevitable Vegas trip could be spent at a gym getting in shape. Could be spent at some of the cool bars down the street right off the T-line in Dogpatch flirting with girls or making friends. Could be spent actually living a life here on the 342 days a year I'm not in Vegas, rather than pining for the 14 or so that I am.
This next trip in 2 weeks may hold the answer for me. If I end up having a not good at all time like the last trip, then maybe I will take that as Vegas trying to tell me something. That maybe Vegas isn't the panacea for all that is broken in my social scene. That maybe, just maybe, after 11 trips in 4 years this will be the last Vegas trip for a while.
Or maybe it will be a pants around the ankles, throwing up off the roof of the Stratosphere, waking up in strange unidentified bedrooms with showgirls, rager of a trip.
Then this post will get deleted.
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