She was with me when I got my wisdom teeth pulled and drove me back to her apartment. She loves me. She would never do this if she didn’t. Then she cooked us pancakes at her apartment while my mouth was full of cotton and I recorded it on my phone before it was cool to make shitty videos. We were so in love. I bought her gifts for her birthday and went up to the Bay Area to meet her parents. I even learned a bit of sign language to talk to her mom who was hard of hearing. This is how a true relationship should be. I’m making so much progress. I used to be such a piece of trash and now look at me: all grown up. Bearing gifts and shit. So why do I feel so lonely? Something is missing, but what?
I kept trying to fix it but feeling lonely in a relationship is like a broken leg; the more you try to fix it, the worse it seems to get. Maybe I need to put forth more effort to become friends with her friends. Yeah, that’s it. No, that’s not it. Okay maybe more outdoor activities. So we went on hikes at runyon canyon–a place that nobody should ever hike if you have any sort of a sex drive whatsoever, but still nothing made me feel whole. Why the fuck are some relationships fulfilling and others so empty?
Feeling Lonely in a Relationship with a Colombiana
I remember when I met that chick. She was beautiful, like nobody I had ever seen (that week). She was Colombian, but she was adopted by waspy parents. She was the barista at the cafe I went to all the time. The cafe where I met that dude who I spilled coffee all over his laptop before his flight to Miami and ruined his life. That’s in another story but that’s the cafe I was at. She was the barista and her ass was plump, her features were dark, her leggings were tight, and her height was short. She was perfect. I really think I love this girl. I don’t know anything about her but I am so certain she’s the one. How could she not be the way she gives me coffee? How could someone look like that, so close to what I imagined the girl I would love to look like, and not be a perfect fit? It had to be. She must be the one. So I invited her hiking a million times cause I feel lonely and I ask after every time I pay for my espresso and go to the cafe and I EVEN went when I wasn’t in the mood to go just to buy something so I could ask her out one more time cause I was CERTAIN she was perfect. And then… One day she said yes. See? I knew it was meant to be.
Radio silence. There was nothing to talk about on that hike. Basic convo flooded the air. She was a dancer trying to make it in LA and I was a former drug addict that loved palm trees, trying to find a love that would make me feel whole again. I had no clue where to take my life, but I couldn’t let her know that. No way. I didn’t have many friends after all the bridges I torched, I was on rocky terms with my family, I had no real career path other than selling weed, I mean… I had pretty much nothing.
I Feel Lonely So What Do I Do Now?
I did have a good deal on rent. I was paying for a room in some shitty apartment on Willoughby Avenue (a fairly shitty street at the time) in Hollywood where I was only paying like $650 a month. If that’s not impressive I don’t know what is. She’ll totally dig my negotiation skills. But yeah, that was what I had going for me at the time: a good deal on rent. The only thing that was missing was a partner (so I thought). I had to find someone to love me quickly before I went nuts. There’s only so long a man can feel so lonely. Why can’t I be okay alone? Alone doesn’t hurt; lonely hurts. I can be lonely in a crowded room and alone with many friends. It’s probably cause I’m too different. I’m not cut out for regular people. That’s why I need a girl to listen to my problems and understand my unique circumstances. Nobody is like me, right? Yeah, that’s probably right. Maybe that’s why I feel so lonely in relationships: because nobody can understand my upbringing. That’s why I chased flimsy love all over the world my whole life. From Colorado to Argentina. Somewhere I’ll find it. Now I’m searching in LA.
It started in middle school (as does everything) and only grew progressively worse. By the time I was a sixteen year-old runaway trying to escape juvenile institutions and attain true freedom, I was hitchhiking all over the country doing the same exact shit: looking for someone to tell me everything will be alright. There was a girl in Augusta that I knew from this therapeutic boarding school I ran away from. Certainly she was the one. There was another girl I was homeless with in Providence, Rhode Island… Maybe she’s the one. There was another girl from my fucked up childhood from Colorado Springs. For five years I thought it was her. As adulthood crept in, I found potential girl-escapes in other places.
I Feel So Lonely (but Fulfilled) After Hostel Sex
Like the chick I met at the hostel in Madrid from Uruguay who didn’t speak English. I went to South America for a hundred days after fucking her in the bathroom at the hostel thinking maybe it could be her. No… the girl from Hawaii that was on vacation from Buenos Aires is much more my speed. She seemed to love me, even if we only exchanged seven sentences. Hold up, could it be the hostel owner’s daughter in Flagstaff, the one I stayed at before nearly dying in the Grand Canyon? Holy shit, it might be her. My mind was fucked for so many years. I chased so many girls and then women until I realized there was nothing there other than a fantasy, my fantasy. Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely?
Fuck. My whole life has been trying to make shit fit that didn’t fit and still I was doing it up until that day in LA when I asked that barista out for a hike. And by then I was like 29.
Then there’s the lonely sex; that’s the worst. Being intimate with someone for fifteen minutes then slingshotting back to a cold demeanor is horrible. Sure, the sex was enjoyable, but any orgasm feels good, right? Why doesn’t it ever feel like she actually wants to have sex? I mean, at the cafe it really seemed like we clicked. The hike was boring, still I feel so lonely, but she did make me pancakes after my wisdom teeth got pulled. All my qualifications for a good partner were on a third grade reading level.
What’s the point?
Point is I started dating that barista all on the premise that I thought she would be a great fit. But that’s not a good starting place. Any relationship I’d ever been in prior to meeting my fiance took insane amounts of work. I feel so lonely in a relationship when it takes work to feel comforted. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. But the second I didn’t want a relationship, the second I finally found a way to fill the gaping hole in my soul with friends and family that truly cared about me, I started attracting a different breed of people; People that actually wanted to be around me; People that I wasn’t holding captive (at least that’s how it felt).
The moral of the story is if the relationship takes work to feel good it won’t ever get better, especially if the relationship is the only source of (pseudo)love.
Now here’s a story about the worst breakup ever.