Guys, do you feel this often?

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For some reason or another I ended up in a pensive mood tonight (I think hearing the right song on Youtube actually just got me thinking along this avenue), should be sleeping but - instead I'm awake to think, think, and think some more!

My question is this: I've had, from my early and mid twenties on, which slowed down in my late twenties, when I really look at the core of a lot of emotions I've had toward the opposite sex, this very strange/odd sense that any time I showing the best of myself, shining epic, showing what can only be put best as higher or spiritual self (again, speaking as an atheist its the only language that really works here) that if I didn't have the right woman in my life to share that experience, share that emotion, and share that glow or moment that its as if it never existed.

When I sort it out rationally its just stupid - obviously I had loads of those epic deeper moments with friends, loads of landmark and historical moments with people that I've known through all these years in platonic ways, and they've shared similar moments with me - single. Just like reading John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards and the parts of the book where he looks at our angst about dying but needing to leave a mark, needing to be at least immortal in memory or 'something' that doesn't give us such a pathetic snuff that our imprints aren't washed right out of the sand by the tide within a few years or even moments; that drive being possibly as maddening for guys as the egg timer is for women and hitting the heights of absurdity to where not only did emperors of old have themselves mummified - even communist party leaders who didn't want to disappear had themselves mummified and put on display for the public as the closest husk of 'immortality' that they could find, even having a general who was buried in a mountain and had all kinds of mirroring of light to do something symbolic - all to sort of try and cheat the full effects of death even though they know the obvious, that they will die and all trace of their existence will eventually be washed away.

That's why I look at it and its so absurd, but I realize that when I was having a dark night of the soul, particularly about being single it was something like that. Obviously though - and the thing I'm sure any of you who've been prone to feel that laugh about, is that this feeling doesn't at all take into account how tone-deaf the majority of the opposite sex may be to these very moments or, just as obvious, that you could share several years in a relationship with someone where that sharing of souls is electrically there, only to find yourselves single again and back at square one - does that technically mean that because you broke up and ended it as awkward platonic friends that all the experiences shared simply flip back to being shared in guy-friend status? There's so many things about emotion I suppose that we could intellectually laugh at all day but regardless, it happens and the human animal being the human animal means that the subconscious won't always agree with the conscious nor do what the conscious mind deems expedient.

Why do I bring this up? Its not that I'm particularly aching in this direction right now, perhaps hearing the right song on Youtube got me thinking of my own artistic hopes and dreams that are on drift bigtime, perhaps forever, but also it was one of those things where the topic was dealing with self and - somewhere along the line, aside from thinking about existential growth and the need to make a mark or share the best of ourselves, I realized that this is a topic that I don't think I've ever seen broached? I'm hoping putting it out there at least helps someone reading this say "Thank ^%*&! Its not just me!" and feel just a bit better that perhaps a fairly large minority or even small majority of humanity (likely both sides of the gender line) are just this emotionally haunted by their own ghosts? At least living in a world where you feel like most people are like you on a deeper more profound level feels so much better, just like nothing is worse I suppose than never meeting anyone you can bare your inner self with (lol, no - streaking town together doesn't count) and feeling like if you can't devise some way of actually getting yourself fully out there - on a third party medium where people can't mistake you - that what people saw on the surface didn't convey it and by the time you died you disappeared because you never succeeded at conveying yourself. I suppose that tends to be a big part of my drive with art and music - NEEDING to make that transfer to third party media but, I still find myself puzzled, for all I know about how broken this world is, why I still at odd times feel like every great peace of art made, every great musical composition rendered, every great poem, every great landscape scene, every epic 3 AM main stage experience is erased because looking back you didn't have a romantic partner to share it with you.

I guess stupid stuff like that is just endemic to the human experience. Aside from that, has anyone ever really heard this touched on in psychology classes (assuming you got into advanced studies rather than just DSM stuff) and found any good theories on why we're so adept at putting ourselves through the ringer over imprint as if this is the only life we'll ever have or, most absurdely, like we have any free will to do something even an atom out of phase with our destinies as rendered at the big bang?

Lol, sorry if I went way too deep on that but, I suppose I warned you - I'm in a pensive mood tonight.

Seems like a way of either making those moments seem more grandiose because you did it by yourself or more crappy because you didnt have someone to share it with.

I can identify with that. That feeling of wanting to share my life and my accomplishments with someone was a big influence in me wanting a relationship.

I have this need to share everything with whomever is around me. I get so random sometimes and then kick myself. Sometimes it is just too much. I get "that is TMI" all the time. Even my own son, who is 22, doesn't want me to talk to his friends. He gets irritated that his freinds like talking to me. Last week he exclaimed that "They come over to see you not me".

When I am in a relationship, I have no problem at first sharing my thoughts and feelings. But when I fall for someone, which is rare, I clam up. I keep thinking that they will find me stupid or boring. Of course, since I stop sharing, they do (think I am boring or stupid) and we break up. What I just started to realize is that I am waiting for them to say they love me. So I can feel ok to be myself again.

How self defeating is that?

Last edited by cinbad on 17 Aug 2011, 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

This read just lifted a weight from my shoulders. Thank you so, so much. I'm not the only one.

Just one quick example from my own life:

About four years back I was staying at my dad's place for Christmas Break. We found a collection of old VHS tapes we had used back in the '80s and '90s to record stuff off of TV. So we went on a little splurge watching them. Then night came, and everyone went to bed. Since I've always been an insomniac, I was the only one who stayed up. It was after midnight, and I felt lonelier than usual, so I popped in a tape that had a clear label on it - the Muppet Family Christmas and Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration TV specials. I remembered these quite clearly from my childhood. Unfortunately, watching them now turned out to be an awful mistake, because I wound up feeling even worse.
This video had been recorded either in 1987 or 1988, and like most young children, I had watched it on repeat so many times I think my parents were ready to throw it in the trash. The specials themselves were enough to well up tearful nostalgia within me, but due to the lack of commercial bumpers, our recordings of these two specials contained the first few seconds of each commercial break. Despite not being the full things, the sudden memory of these ads, combined with their saccharine holiday music, pushed me into full waterworks mode.
Then came this horrific, overwhelming emotion I just could not explain. It was a feeling of despair and loneliness beyond anything I had heretofore experienced: I had nobody to share these memories with. And it wasn't just that, it was my knowledge that no matter how hard I tried to communicate these emotions to somebody, once Christmas Break was over and I went back to college, they wouldn't even get the gist of how awful I felt. Because these kinds of things don't affect others the same way they affect me. Watching something from your early youth is supposed to trigger fond memories, not a feeling of despair so overwhelming you half feel like killing yourself. I knew in that moment, nobody could relate to me, and it was as if I was already dead and long forgotten. Even now, as I type this, I realize it doesn't do my emotions that night justice by a long shot.

Right, and that even personalized/concreted the nostalgia even more. If it were me though I wouldn't toss that, and one thing to remind yourself of is that if you watch it again it won't quite have the same impact, and after that even less.

I had a period between 19 and 21 that in some ways I could classify as the best years of my life, circumstances were surreal and I was involved in a scene that was almost otherworldly at that time that really doesn't still exist in the same way it did. The funny thing about it though - I'm still really big on electronic music (the name says a lot I'm sure), and I realize that there are genres where I can listen to songs from that period of time and it has no ill-at-ease nostalgic effect because I've had these cds or mixes in rotation for so long, whereas if someone starts digging up another genre that I don't listen to as often from that time period I start feeling moody quick.

I'm still not sure what's better - avoid it or exercise it. The best conclusion I can come to, when and if I do exercise it I need to be wise in how I deal with myself at that point, ie. I need to be compassionate enough with myself to sort out the realities of how applicable that set of emotions is, understanding where it went and why, and particular to your case just doing the internal accounting/due diligence to reconcile it with myself now and understand either the surrealty of it or, if I've perhaps needed it in my life still, to what capacity.

The funny thing, I mentioned a song on Youtube, I don't know who originally wrote Monster Mask, I've heard it before but ignored it because it really wasn't in my kind of genre, but listening to the words - like a Jim Hansen bit - its got a heck of an idealistic bend, I get the message and I'm on board with whoever wrote it but, for everyone wearing masks to get on with society I also think its exhorbitantly cruel to ones self as well to look at it that way *if* they've peeled the mask back as far as they absolutely can and their lives literally don't and will not give them the opportunity to remove it in its entirety. I think as we hit mile markers in life and epiphanies about the human condition - like writing a song like Monster Mask, people have moments where something is a front-burner priority but then it recedes with everything else when they realize that their reaction wasn't fully tempered, you know what I mean? I think that actually goes hand-in-hand with the epic kids movies bit because, again, its dealing with emotions and ideas that would be perfect but - you can be 30, 40, 50, 60 even, and as a male - you're still quite limited in terms of what types of emotion you're allowed to show and if you wear your emotions or your identity on your sleeve at 50 or 60 it'll likely be a reaction not 'too' different than what you might get at 25 or 30. At the same time its not just people's bigotry, there are certain things about our society and us as animals where - unfortunately - it just works like this and there's not a lot we can do about it.


I have a really hard time watching kids movies, at least stuff that gets real moody like that in general. I've been home when my parents lets say had relatives, their kids came over and they decided to put something new on - I stayed out and just hearing bits of the mood conveyed, I felt like I'd need to have all sharp objects kept away from myself so I wouldn't start going emo.

I think the problem with kids movies, part of it is that they know kids have very limited focus, to show them the ropes of how emotion works they overembellish, and to top it off its not a set of emotions that you can really show or feel in the adult world - you're not allowed to, its really something like a whistfully passed on set of ideals, dreams, and in a way I think its adults passing on what they wish they could feel openly but can't and are passing it on to the next generation hoping they can open them up a bit more. I still remember a couple years ago, even watching something like Wall-E, which was still a good movie and worth an adult watch, got rough around the angles - particularly late in the movie.

Yeah, I think the whole world is largely inept at it and it seems like no one will tell you how to do it when 90% of the time your a dork, or a nerd, or weak for showing your emotions but then when the right thing comes along you're suppose to know exactly how and when. I think in those situations though I felt that slow-burn of having someone I really wanted interested and then losing them enough times that I've gotten a little better at least now.

I think that love often catalyzes some higher movement, ideals, goals in people. One of the best things about love is how inspiring and motivating it is.

It's completely psychedelic in a way. People change when they fall in love.

'Love lifts us up where we belong'

I known people who just don't bother if there's no one to bother for. I don't think it's that uncommon.

Like with any beneficial psychedelic experience, you have to retain the positive transformations even after the drugs cease their immediate effect.

Understood but.... we still live in a world where that's the pinnacle of luck, and its mysery if people's internal disposition keeps pointing them off at what are clearly ghosts and shadows.


Lol - that's kind of scary, as in we could just about start a '20 Reasons why Mushrooms are Better and Safer Than Women' if we think on it that way.

Yes. I felt this way recently about a significant accomplishment in my life, and blurted out to my colleagues something to the effect "Gawd I wish I had a girlfriend to share this with." For some reason they thought it was funny. They are all married. Not sure there's a connection.

Lol, that's probably a "Watch what you wish for".

I've been waiting for a thread about this forever! I travel so much and meet famous people fairly often, and I feel like there's a massive gaping hole there, since doing all that stuff with my parents & grandparents gets old after awhile!

Wish you didn't have to post a 25 page manifesto. Good grief.

Lol, no one made you read it right?

Perhaps for your next manifesto, you might also supply a Cliffs Notes version, for those of us who are both lovelorn and very lazy. Might reach a broader audience that way, Tech.

I could also have three out of four people coming up with stuff that's way off point or - just not express myself at all but broach a general question to feel it out.

Think we're over-analyzing this a little.