Tuesday, 20 October 2015
THE STIGMA OF BEING ALONE
Sitting in a very men's bar
between the train station and the school, rainy Monday, big city, long train
ride and the big buildings around me, that I can see through the window pass
calendars with pretty naked ladies on them and beer posters, are either very
modern, glassy, cold and uninviting, or brick brownstones full of stories and
industrial ghosts. I haven't told many I'm here, so I have a few hours to kill
over ... interesting coffee and, thankfully, not an ozone of smoke, since
smokers have all been shunned out. The wifi code is 'summer night' - the
barkeeper apologized they are all nostalgics here..
Full trains may be full of
excellent faces - my favorite part of humans - but they are also full of
fucking dumb conversations, if your iPod just happens to have better things to
do than help you out. So. I write. I've
had it up to HERE with women (and men) and all of the 'Hear me out, Sally'
columns that write their own questions, who go on and on about having great
lives, but all their friends are already married and with kids and they are
freaking out because they're still single at thirty. Or not even single, just,
ALONE: they were in relationships but it didn't work out or they are in
relationships, but it's not working out, what is wrong with them, what is wrong
with their partners, will they ever find happiness... Just. Shut the fuck up,
you losers.
People who marry four fucking
times. People who spent 30 years whining about loneliness in a relationships. People
who full VOLUMES on being slaves to their kids, their jobs, their frigging
Facebooks. This is why I hate people. They are an insult to the miracle of
being alive.
Do you have any idea how many
insanely small odds had to align for you to be breathing right now? No, because
you’re stupid. Because the time that should have been spent understanding is
spent getting attention you neither need nor deserve. You are already HERE. You’ve
already won!
First of all, love and
happiness are not the same thing.
Marriage and happiness are not
the same thing.
Kids and happiness are not the
same thing.
Being properly fucked on daily
basis is not the same as being happy. Even if you do it in a really fast
car.
Being alone and loneliness are
not the same thing.
Not even close. House, dog,
god, job, hobby, car, coffee, these are not building bricks of happiness.
And they never will be unless
you are able to wake up in your own head and think: I love my life. It's so fun
to be me.
The society we exist in,
privileged, healthy, western society is going through an amazing
transformation, one like we've never seen before. One that fifty years ago when
they were still hanging black people for looking at white people too intently
could not even imagine. Many other cultures dipped their toes in some of these
(Greeks encouraged homosexuality, Indians admit to the third gender, Taiwan
enjoys cross-dressing....) but only we are on the doorstep of simply saying: if
it doesn't harm anybody, live and let live. Love and let love. How you identify
yourself, how you express yourself is A GOOD thing. It is not a threat. Least
of all to anyone’s peace of mind. I know several gay people who are fucking
retards, but they would be emotional retards even if they were straight. I also
know some really nice gay people. I think *I* am a nice gay person. I’ve never
been told I am not. Nobody called me a freak because I am gay. They called me a
freak because when I was in first grade, I said Earth is a planet and we all
live in a galaxy. But as gay, I am a nice person. I am also a nice bisexual
person. I also once happened to be a nice asaxual person of a track record of
ten years, for no reason other than simply not liking screwing. Everyone was
doing it, so I made some efforts to see what the fuss was about, in case I was
wrong. But it wasn't for me, at a time. And I was and remain, somehow, blessed,
immune to peer pressure thorough my entire existence. (To which I hope I am at
a half or so.)
I don't know any nice
crossdressing or transgender people, or at all, but I think I would be a little
afraid of them, because they always dress so nice and have such good style and
I dress like a hobo and wear mountaineering shoes when I go to the capital...
What. They're cozy. And it's raining. Blow me. No, really, blow me, I'm wet and
not in a good way. It's really raining.
I am waiting for society to
stop pushing the YOU GOTSTA BE IN A RELATIONSHIP TO BE A COMPLETE PERSON
bullshit. All the other stigmas are lifting. There was a time when a woman who preferred
reading to cooking was considered hysterical. There was a time when a man who preferred
teaching to making money was considered the black sheep of the family, the weak
son. Society rejected oddballs, because those shouldn’t reproduce. Which is, of
course, something everyone MUST do, otherwise there is no point of being alive
at all.
I can't wait for this one to
fall. Proving your worth upon a bunch of parasitic little shitheads that call
you a bad parent if you don’t keel over trying to serve to their every whim.
Clean after them. Feed them. Clothe them. Entertain them. Protect them. Educate
them. Make sure they don’t grow up into serial killers or rapists or
politicians as if you had any influence at all over biology, which you don’t.
But you must. Or you’re not worth anything.
I know I am not a normal
person, I am genetically distanced from wanting to reproduce, I don't like
kids, I don't even like other people very much. My parents are similar, so I
know that's inherited and I'm grateful. I would hate to feel bad about my
choices. I know some do. Some must continue to explain themselves. I also possess
a high level of whatever brings masculinity to a woman's psyche, meaning I don’t
feel the need to scream to be rescued by a prince all the time. I don’t stand
out like a butch Russian Olympic hammer thrower with two thick braids down my
manly chest. Men used to scream feminists and suffragettes are all ugly and
butch and will destroy society. Ironic bit was, nobody was happy in that
society, least of all men.
I never needed anybody to make
me happy. I had me. In storms, in the dark, I had me. I conquered the fucking
world, on my own. Loved it, too. I've had parents and grandparents who would
buy me anything I asked for and all I ever asked for were books, because my
feet at the time were too small to really walk very far, over continents. I was
loved. I loved back. I respected every gift. I could see their intentions were
pure. I could not see how someone in the same situation could be so miserable
and unfulfilled.
Because gifts, touches and
smiles only get as far as the skin. You cannot shove happiness into one’s skin.
Happiness has to already be inside. It’s a one-way ticket. You can’t have it if
you hate the hole inside your doughnut.
When I felt like fucking I
fucked. When I didn't, I didn't. When I wanted to marry, I married. When I
wanted to divorce, I divorced. When I wanted to travel, I traveled. Penniless.
And far. And long. But when I felt like coming back and working a normal (okay,
maybe not quite so normal) job, I did so.
Never did the fact others
married, had kids and settled down concern me in the slightest. Those people
never settled down - they've always BEEN settled down. And they were always
really nice people. I know people who make amazing parents. I am very happy for
them.
I do not allow them to whine. Do
what makes you happy or shut the fuck up. Not in a thousand years dare blame someone
else for your pathetic excuse of a personality. Are you alive? Than act like
it. Are you Malala? A child, shot in the head for fighting for her school friends?
No. Are you Stephen Hawking, sick since he was a student, and still fighting to
elevate the IQ of the world? No. Are you Gandhi, a cute pervy old dude in a
diaper, starving himself and smiling for peace when his countrymen are being
slaughtered by millions by colonialists? No. So what the fuck is your problem?
Who are you waiting for to make something of you? A comet?
Oh, I’m sorry, you’re stuck in
a terrible conflict of your own heart on whether or not you should marry and
have babies or should you wait for true love? Ye, right, that’s what will make
you a decent human being. That there is true meaning of one’s life.
When will there be completely
and utterly okay to be completely and utterly alone? And not considered like
you are a mental patient or a socially unacceptable, awkward specimen for whom
there is no hope? “Surely if she has no children she must be a CEO or a Nobel
Prize winning scientist, otherwise, why would anyone...?” It's already becoming acceptable, after the
right to vote, the right to wear pants and the right to cross a street without
a male escort, for women say fuck no to the kids. But fuck no to having to
co-exist? Because nobody sane can do so, right? We consider alone-ness to be
utter, almost disease-like condition, pathological loneliness. There is nothing
worse than being alone. Mark Watney wasn't going to lose it from starvation as
soon as he would from being away from everybody else - he was so desperate for
human contact he watched bad TV shows just to feel like he belonged.
You belong in a cave if you
plan to live alone. And even hermits and holy wankers atop of holy mountains
only do it so that young boys and girls climb there and say 'gosh, you must be
so holy to wank alone all this time'.
Crazy cat lady, right? Hansel
and Gretel witch, right? Gordo the Weirdo. Because nobody normal could possibly
want to be alone. Right? You must have some ghastly skin condition or
something. Why else would you sleep alone? You must be a prime character in
Trainwreck, a whore or ugly or, perish the thought, fat. Because if you don’t
starve yourself, do yoga, spend money on nice clothes, you must be giving up on
anyone ever loving you, right?
Who would CHOSE to do that?
Sleep alone in a bed they chose? Wake up alone and have breakfast and a shower
on their own. Walk to work alone or with the dog or meet somebody for the
doggie walk and just hang out. Hang out with people you like without desperately
trying to fuck them. Or try to marry people you fuck for fun. Who has coffee on
their own, go to the movies alone? Eat alone. That's so.... Pathetic. Right?
Not even nuns and priests are alone, they are always surrounded by people of
community and they have characters from magic books in the sky to talk
to.
People freak out at the
thought of social abstinence. You can't explain it when you tell someone I feel
like being alone for the next five or ten years. It may change, dunno. It may
not. I may be alone always. It feels comfortable and I'm happy. No, I am not in
a cult. I am not screaming a political statement. My vagina is not a temple. I
am not on a hunger strike of marriage because it’s now legal to marry your favorite
lamp post. I'm married to me. I love myself. I love my life. Burn down my house
to the ground, steal my car, hide my dog, wet my clothes. Ban all vibrators.
Put me on an island. It's still fun to be me. Yes, I need dentists and I need
someone to get the viruses out of my computer, but I don’t have to marry those
people. There needn’t be skin between us, money is just as polite.
Biology, which we call
tradition, society and so on, programs us to co-exist. That's why the greatest
fear of people who feel like killing other people isn't punishment but
excommunication. The instinct draws you into the crowd, safety of numbers, into
the rules that make things easy in the long run. Living in a commune, such a
town or a big city – which nobody is forcing you to do, there is plenty room in
the countryside, believe me, makes things comfortable, clean and safe, and
fast. But we are about a million years away from being co-dependent on others. I
am not talking about living on the moon. Yes, I can operate a lighthouse, but I
am not talking about leaving, intentionally, as a recluse. NO. NOT AWAY. The
contrary. I cannot get enough of the toys and tricks modern living offers: I
love social networks, blogs, art exhibitions, libraries, busy streets, full
trains, winning a free bag of broccoli in my local supermarket, photographing
passers-by, eating food others prepare, using tools others have designed - I am
just not tied to the umbilical bungee cord that feels like I am chained to
SOMEBODY ELSE when I walk out of the house and like I am being pulled back when
I go home. I am able to enjoy all of that ON MY OWN. I love my friends. I make
sure I see them whenever I feel like it. When it was time to fall in love and
get married again, I loved that, too. I felt like it. He smells nice and is
very warm. But I didn't completely undress my own self and became someone's
emotional slave, addicted, tied to a room, reduced myself to a half-person when
I decided to pair up. I didn't do it because I settled down. If anything, I am
more me now than I was beforehand. I do not wash dishes or socks, I don't iron,
I don't vacuum, fuck having kids, fuck shaving my legs in winter, I walk my own
dog and I still go to the movies or coffee alone when I feel like it. I can
still leave town alone. I can still wake up and my first thought is: good
morning you awesome person, you, what are we going to fuck up today? I equally
enjoy sex as I do masturbation. If I had to choose between sacrificing myself
or my husband.... Well, okay, I would choose him because he's a better person,
but that's just how I roll. I respect society and its rules to almost no
exception - I would never endanger a woman with a child, would never even
disrespect one. I have great hopes for humanity. I simply cannot abide people
who wouldn't sustain sanity for a week if told to exist just as themselves, depending
on themselves, enjoying themselves, feeling good about how complete they are.
How can you be in a
relationship if you continuously wait for someone to miraculously draw you a
map to your own insides? Stupidity of that just sucks balls.
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