Am I too jaded?

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I've been finding out that I have a hard time feeling happy for other people, especially when it comes to relationship stuff. Every time I hear that a couple got together/screwed/got engaged/got married/had kids, I just want to run into a corner and hide from the world. I don't know why, but hearing tales of other people being happy makes me feel sad, probably because I am all alone. I nearly flipped out at my mother recently when she wanted me to sing at a wedding for someone at our church.

Conversely, one of my darkest, most sadistic emotions is the slight twinge of enjoyment I feel at hearing about breakups and divorces. I'll feel bad for anyone caught in the middle, such as kids, but when a couple breaks up I start feeling a bit smug at their loss. This doesn't apply with any concerns to individual achievements, such as promotions in a job, only with things that are concerned with love and romance...

Wow I just read all that... am I really as screwed up as I sound?

No, you are jealous.

Toadofsteel I totally understand where you are coming from with this. i feel like I am trying to battle with trying not to be too jaded. My sister got her wedding dress delivered yesterday and she doesn't like it. I felt a tiny bit smug. Although I have been helping her search online for a second hand dress now, so I do feel sorry for her. It looked amazing on the website, but the reason it was cheap is because they use cheap fabric to make it.

I hate weddings. I feel like it's just showing off. I can't help but hate weddings.

I do feel dreadful when I hear of someone getting together. It makes me crumple up inside. I think the darkness is partly fear that I won't find anyone. It is helpless despair. the thing is, I have a couple of friends who are in their late 30s and they are alone and have become very bitter and I am trying not to be like them. Who would be drawn to a bitter person. But when I see people younger than me getting together, I feel like I am getting old and I feel like time is running out.

Sorry I'm not in a very coherent writing mode today. Most of that was waffle. But I look at happy couples and feel crushing pain.

ToadOfSteel, when I feel lonely (which you sound like you feel like this), I almost resent anyone who is in a happy relationship etc and wonder why it isn't happening to me (jealousy I guess). I hate feeling like that because it consumes you (I don't feel like this now btw despite the fact I'm single) because, normally, I am not a jealous person. But sometimes we just can't help how we feel.

Do you engage in any hobbies or have things that take up a lot of your time? I tend to find that if I am adequately occupied, my relationship status isn't something that's an issue for me at all because I'm too busy focusing on other things. Besides, sometimes it takes a while to find someone you are going to be happy with. There is no point getting with someone just because you feel lonely, it doesn't work in the end and only makes you feel worse when it doesn't work out (been there done that...)

By the way ToadOfSteel, I like your avatar

Hey Toad. I don't think you are very 'screwed up'. This is quite common, I'm sure. I've been there myself. You just crave those things so much that it's painful to hear when other people are succeeding where you feel you can't. Like a stab in the guts.

It would help very much if you can find ways to come to peace with your single-ness. It would probably also help you to 'attain' the very thing you crave if you can approach it with a more equanimous attitude. To have so much attachment to what you crave can actually put it further out of your reach. They say that people can 'smell' desperation. It's very true.

Make yourself more happy in your life as it is. I know that's very fuzzy advice, but I feel I can't be much more specific without going into a long winded essay about the 4 noble truths or something. Find a way.

I don't think I would call it jaded- but definitely quite selfish. I am not saying that in a negative way-- we all go through those times in our lives where we can only focus on ourselves. When I got divorced, I felt very much the same way. I got irritated when people got into relationships or married and I tried to only hang out with the people who weren't happily involved. I was selfish and it's all I could give at that time.

That being said, I think it is not a healthy way of surviving. You do probably need to get out and make yourself happy, single or not. Once you are relatively happy for yourself, its much easier to be happy for someone else. Things happen in their own time. If you are in that selfish state, no one will want to get involved with you, and you won't be able to provide anything for a partner.

Great... I'm already slipping into self-absorbed narcissism again...

Quite well-said, except I sort of have a discomfort issue being in public.

I wouldn't take it that far It is important to be happy for other people, however. But if you are always relating it back to what you have or don't have, then you are very internally focused. Nothing wrong with that if you need it for a time. Please know that. But you do have to change your mindset about it.

Have you ever read steppenwolf? Learn to dance.

I agree that what you're feeling is mostly plain ol' envy, and it's to be expected when something you desire so much seems to come so easily to others.

But you're not jaded. Not yet.

Jaded will come after you've found that special relationship - and felt it slip through your fingers time after time, until one day you realize you don't want it any more, because losing it - being unable to nurture it and keep it alive - is even more painful than never having had it at all.

Enjoy this early envious stage. Relish it. You'll feel nostalgic for it one day.

What does Steppenwolf have to do with dancing? I thought it had more to do with singing. John Kay's voice range that is similar to mine (just a couple steps higher) so I can actually sing their songs without having to sing an octave down. The funny thing is, one of my fantasies I had a few years back was to serenade this one woman I knew with Magic Carpet Ride... but unfortunately as a classically trained bass, I can't quite replicate the distinctive qualities of his voice...

my first sponsor in AA used to chant to me 'behavior, behavior, behavior'

i.e. your feelings are just what they are. you admitted to some stuff that alot of people probably feel but wouldn't admit to. It doesn't make you bad or good. I think suppressed feelings do alot more harm in the world than expressed feelings. I have to admit when i hear about people getting in relationships it makes me feel a bit hopeful. Because it seems to me lately that all anyone wants to do is casual sex. So I'm like, wow, people still commit? Awesome. Or all the cheating scandals in the news.

But I am the way you feel about relationships with jobs...I have such a struggle with work so that is where I get my spiteful feelings coming out. But they are just feelings, as long as it doesn't influence my behavior I can just experience it and let it pass.

But whether you want to sing at a wedding is completely your call. If you decide to honor your feelings and not do it, then that is fine.

It's not dancing specifically... But an approach to life. Short book, well worth the read. Something I try to adhere to... Especially when the winds howl from within.

When I heard "Steppenwolf", I immediately thought of the group who sang "Born to Be Wild".

Yeah thats what I was thinking of too... there's something else called Steppenwolf?