Lovesick

I haven't had many relationships, and they've all been short except one, which probably doesn't count as a relationship since we were living hundreds of miles away from each other for most of it. I don't have the experience of most people my age, and lately I've felt that lack.

One day I woke up and realized I was bald, a bit overweight, and feeling old, and it occurred to me that I might never have the chance to make someone else happy and fall in love. That was a scary moment. In some Asian countries, due to the preference for male babies over girls, there is now a 3-1 ratio, and since very few have the means to leave, there's going to be a large population of men that simply never get a chance to start a family. I read this fact has been identified as a threat to the future security of the world, as men who can't find an outlet for their emotions are more susceptible to manipulation by terrorist recruiters, cults, and the like. While that's thankfully not the case here in the U.S., the fact is the longer you wait, the harder and more uncertain it is when you start seriously looking, at least in my experience.

I spent years as a single guy with no attachments, and someone was recently telling me how studies have shown relationships are harder to maintain for people like me because they're used to getting their way to a large extent, and doing what they please. This makes me fear I may have grown selfish with my time and energy, and while I have tried to meet people and dated some in that same timeframe, I really wish I had made more of an effort now. Part of it was circumstance, probably some of it was arrested development, but I can't deny that it was also lack of interest. I felt like there was no hurry, and while that was true of getting married, say, it wasn't true of learning how to love someone.

Which is a long way of saying, when you do fall in love, you realize what you've been missing, and cherish it all the more, regardless of whatever else may be wrong.

I can already hear the counter-argument from those who fell in love at a young age only to be hurt repeatedly, and it's true I don't know if it's worse or better than the heartbreaks when love fails. But right now, I have to side with the poet who said "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Because the feeling of loving someone is worth having, and holding onto, even when it's not returned. I can only imagine how much better it must be when it is.