Work Text:
Eye to Eye
It’s been a while since I wrote any confessional prose, so this is probably a little overdue. I forget how therapeutic it can be. How it’s one of the few places I can actually get my thoughts out.
I thought of something yesterday that seems almost comical to me. I’m a little taller than you. A couple of inches. It’s really not all that much difference, but because of that, we never see eye to eye. Literally. Either I’m looking down, literally, at you, or you’re looking up, literally, at me.
Sometimes it feels like the opposite though. Sometimes it feels like I’m looking up, figuratively, at you. Because, though you don’t see it in yourself, there are so many positive traits about you that I admire: resilience, compassion, determination, straightforwardness, kindness, patience.
And sometimes, and I know you’d hate that I feel this way, but sometimes it does feel like you look down on me. Figuratively. I’m obsessive, impulsive, negative, confusing. I get caught up in the details too easily, or hung up on one thought for too long. Everything with me is either too much or not enough; all or nothing; do or die. And that makes me exhausting.
I know you don’t feel this way. It’s all in my head. I know that logically. You don’t look down on me. But I can’t say with certainty that you don’t find me obsessive, or confusing. That you don’t find me too much but somehow still not measuring up. And so the feeling persists.
Because I don’t find communication easy. Not at all. Trying to explain why I feel the way I feel is something that feels so impossible in the moment.
So when I told you that I wish people were more romantic, and how I don’t think romantic people really exist, you told me they do exist. You’ve met them. You’re dating a romantic.
Which is great! I'm so happy for you, that you’ve met someone like that, who will go that extra mile for you!
I haven’t.
So when you tried to reassure me that I’ll meet that someone, I just have to keep looking, I didn’t hear the reassurance. The kindness. They had to be there somewhere. They always are with you. But I couldn’t hear them. And that’s on me.
Because I truly know that you meant well. Honestly. I was never mad at you for the words you picked. And I wasn’t mad at you for getting frustrated at me either. Because you’re right, we were going in circles.
You wanted to reassure. You wanted to fix the bad feelings and make them good and hopeful.
I wanted to be heard. To not feel brushed off. To not try and be placated with empty platitudes. Because they may not be empty to you, but I’ve heard the same sentiments over and over again, and they’ve never once been proven true. There’s plenty more fish in the sea. The right person is out there, gotta be patient. Romance could be right around the corner. I’ve heard them so many times that they feel meaningless. Like when you repeat the same word over and over again until it starts to sound made-up, like gibberish. So these phrases aren’t helpful to me; they are empty - words to console, to stop someone being upset, and to get them to move on. And I think I turned to the wrong person to empathise because I don’t know if you can truly empathise with this feeling.
Because I’ve never heard you gush over her. You don’t excitedly tell me about Valentine’s or Birthday plans with her. I don’t know if you think it’s a kindness to me - me and her aren’t on the best of terms - but I don’t mind hearing about it. I’d actually kind of enjoy it, hearing about other people’s romances. I get to live vicariously. I get to be reminded that romance does exist in reality. Maybe you don’t talk about it to anyone, but it always seems so strange to me that you shut that part of your world away. But that’s another thing entirely. But I think the point I’m trying to make with this is that, provided it’s not a trust thing or a thing you do out of kindness towards me, it’s very likely that you don’t view romance in the same way I do. I’m making an assumption here, I know, but like I said, I’ve never once heard you gush over her or talk about her with a dumb soft smile on your face or stop and stare at something in a shop window because it reminds you of her. So romance, maybe it’s not something you crave the way I do.
So when I said there were no romantic people in the world, you didn’t hear the loneliness. You wanted to refute it, make sure I didn’t believe it as fact.
And when I told you I was jealous that you’d met romantic people, it seems like you didn’t hear a word.
You kept telling me they existed. That you’d met them and they existed. It’s not like you were about to set me up with them, so why did you continue when I told you that they weren’t in places where I was meeting people - where I felt comfortable meeting people.
You didn’t hear the self-doubt.
You didn’t hear the fear that I am not worth the effort of romance.
You didn’t hear the self-hatred that I just can't seem to make things work out.
That’s not your fault. I want to make it emphatically clear that I don’t blame you for not hearing any of that in what I said. I never said it explicitly. Hell, I didn’t even know I felt this way until I started writing this. I use ‘you’ a lot in the last paragraph which sounds kind of accusatory but there’s nothing to accuse you of. I don’t think any of this was your fault - I never thought it was. I’m a loud person. But I’ve never been able to speak up. I guess the irony there is kind of funny. I hide all the whispers of self-doubt under loud war-cries of self-acceptance and self-love. Sometimes I lose the battle though.
I could feel your frustration building but I didn’t know how to stop it because I didn’t feel understood. When I don’t feel understood, I kind of keep going until I think I’ve made the message clear or until someone gets mad and stops the conversation. I need to stop doing that. There’s a lot I need to learn to let go of.
I only realised, twenty-four hours after the fact, that that is what I was trying to say. That I’m worried that seeking someone who's romantic is another thing I should be letting go of. That I worry I am not good enough for what I’m asking for. Or, if I am, then I’m left wondering why I can’t find it.
Because of course, romantic people are still out there. Otherwise, love songs and romcoms and bouquets wouldn’t exist. But I’ve lived a few more years than you have, and I have only met one person who was truly romantic.
And being told that they’re out there, I just need to keep looking… well, it doesn’t solve the loneliness, does it? Because I’m still alone while I’m searching.
I’m not good at articulating my thoughts. Too often it feels like everyone else got an instruction manual, a tutorial, a walk-through on how social interactions work. And I just got thrown into the game, under-levelled with no idea of the controls, let alone any idea of what I’m even meant to be doing. And I’m playing this game next to people and I’m trying to copy what they do to get past each stage, and I keep messing up over and over until I get it right. But everyone else did it their first try. And all I can think is how?
I’m trying to navigate a world I don’t understand - be it romantic life, friendships, work-life - and everyone else seems to know these rules. But I don’t.
I’m really lucky I have my family. They seem to just understand me. I mean, being the youngest, they have all literally known me all my life. So, most of the time, I can tell them what I need and what I want. Most of the time. Even with them, I trip and slip and stutter, and the words come out wrong.
Because this is the thing. I can’t think of a single person who I see eye to eye with. I can’t think of a single person I can look in the eye while they look right back at me. I struggle too much with that.
I’ve kind of felt lonely all my life.
And so I clung to the idea that like some Karen McCullah rom-com, some Jane Austen novel, some Taylor Swift love song, someone out there would understand me, and I’d be worth the flowers and the dinner dates and the surprise picnics at sunset, and everything would be okay. There’d be someone out there who I wouldn’t frustrate to the point where they need a break from me, and we wouldn’t end up in a screaming match that I don’t understand.
I clung to the idea that there would be someone I felt normal with. Not just that I could be myself around them, but that being myself wasn’t strange at all.
Because I can be myself around you. But I don’t feel normal around anyone.
I think this is why the concept of dying alone never really scared me. Never truly gave me any cause to pause. I’m not so much as concerned about whether it may happen, but instead resigned to the fact it will. Because I think I’d rather die alone feeling normal than settle for anything less than being me and feeling like that is enough.
Because romance isn’t all flowers and sunsets - I know that. Those are just the examples I know to give, because films tell me that’s what romance is. Sometimes it’s making a plan, so I don’t have to think of everything. Sometimes it’s booking a table at a cheap restaurant, because the food is good, so the price didn’t matter, and the table was down by the river because I love the sound of water. Sometimes it’s wearing sunglasses because I struggle with eye contact, and it makes it easier on me.
And sometimes it’s not there at all. Sometimes you can’t force it. Because something isn’t marrying up.
Because people say that looking people in the eye helps you to see if they’re being dishonest. I don’t know how true that is. But sometimes it feels like things don’t connect because I just can’t see eye to eye.