The People Meant to Be Alone Forever

I want to be happy for the happiness of other people. And yet, I find that hard to do. I am the person who reads through my Facebook Newsfeed and the stories of people getting married, pictures of their children, and news of their happy events with growing resentment.

It isn't that I don't WANT them to be happy. It is envy. Purse and simple. I want those things too. I want to be able to point to people who love me and things that I'm good at. Alas, my skills fall under areas that are not very skillful. I read 5 newspapers a day. I'm quite good at remembering details of old movies.

I am not lovely nor charming nor interesting, at least not in any positive sense. I am interesting in the way you may use the word to describe the short story a friend made you read, one where all the characters are actually dead the whole time.

I just want to feel like I have some type of direction in my life. Be it a partner or a family or a career. Something with the gravity to keep me from floating away through the emptiness of space as I currently do.

"There's someone for EVERYONE," the old saying goes. Even Hitler had a girlfriend! And so I go drifting in the hope that eventually I will find the thing that is meant for me.

Yeah. Well, I realized that it doesn't exist.

Have you read Aristophanes section of Plato's Symposium. Go read it. It's great. Here's the wiki-synopses.

His speech is an explanation of why people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love partner. He begins by explaining that people must understand human nature before they can interpret the origins of love and how it affects the then present time. It is, he says, because in primal times people had doubled bodies, with faces and limbs turned away from one another. As somewhat spherical creatures who wheeled around like clowns doing cartwheels, these original people were very powerful. There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous," who was half male, half female. The males were said to have descended from the sun, the females from the earth and the androgynous couples from the moon. The creatures tried to scale the heights of heaven and planned to set upon the gods. Zeus thought about blasting them to death with thunderbolts, but did not want to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, in effect separating the two bodies.
Zeus then commanded Apollo to turn their faces around and pulled the skin tight and stitched it up to form the navel which he chose not to heal so Man would always be reminded of this event. Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature...Aristophanes then claims that when two people who were separated from each other find each other, they never again want to be separated.

Sweet, right?

But I feel like he leaves out one group. A people who didn't come from these groups. Men and women born singular and without any partner. They did not threaten the Gods and so they were left alone, ignored and forgotten. I know that this group exists because I am one of them. I do not feel that I am not whole as I am, I just feel that I am directionless and powerless. Just as the primal singletons would have felt in a world filled with these joined creatures that took on the Gods.

I'm convinced that there are those of us who really are meant to be alone forever. There is not another person who can fulfill us. And we certainly are unable to make them whole. Those looking for their missing piece may stay with use for a time. We may be fun and fabulous and amazing people, be we are not their lost piece. We can't even make them happy.

The sad part is that we of the single group may find happiness with the halflings. We can find happiness with anyone, really. We aren't missing a piece of our soul and so do not understand the call of chemistry and connection. We just wish to find someone to help pass the time and entertain us. The halflings can do that. Sometimes we may hold on to them because they bring us such joy. They may hold on to use because they are afraid to be alone. But in the end we can never make them happy because we are not what they are seeking.

The world understands the lament of the halfling looking to be complete. I'm never going to be able to understand the pain that they experience as they try to find their other half. But there is a pain that comes from being one of the singletons; knowing that you're never going to be one of the majestic pairs that could take on the Gods. Yes, you are complete and whole as you are, but you are also all you are ever going to be. Stop trying to strive for more or greatness. Those things are reserved for others.

That's a painful message, but a hopeful one. It means all the energy you are putting into trying to find someone else is no longer needed. Cancel your online dating profiles and use the money to pay for a trip you always wanted to take. Stop getting up an hour early to look perfect before you leave the house (unless you enjoy it). Sleep in and know that you aren't going to scare away your soulmate. They don't exist! Stop fretting about what you are missing out on. You aren't missing it at all. It was never meant for you. Find joy in the joy of others without wondering what it means for you. It means nothing. You are COMPLETE. You are WHOLE. You are exactly who you were always meant to be.