Burned AKA why it’s you that there’s something wrong with.
The fad to be single is alive and well. But a single, not involved woman over the age of 30 – my age – is treated suspiciously. What’s more, it’s more and more common to also look suspiciously at women who are only verging on being 30.
The cat mom – do you know everything about her?
She’s not only perceived this way by her family or friends, but also men aka potential partners. When I let people know – regardless of their sex – that I’m single, most of them KNOW right away that there’s something wrong with me. Do you know that feeling? ‘An old maid with cats’, ‘the cat mom’… Times and times again it has happened to me that people who knew absolutely nothing about me, tried to pigeonhole me like this from the get go. And it doesn’t matter that I spent almost my entire adult life in a relationship filled with harmony, happiness, peace and complete understanding. A relationship in which there was no room for arguments, jealousy or cheating and sex was consistent and if I’m completely honest – simply fantastic. If it wasn’t a relationship but a job, then with my résumé and experience I would have the best job offered to me hands down, if you understand this slightly extreme comparison. But why would it matter if around the ‘magical’ number thirty I’m single, they know what to think about it. The life of a single person is something foreign, difficult and not entirely understandable for me. It happens that I’m 100% satisfied with my life, it happens that I enjoy life and even that I’m happy. But other times I feel very strange because I don’t have anyone to share it all with. I suspect that it’s a similar feeling to the one experienced by people who have lost a limb and they have made their peace with it but still try to reach something with their hand that’s not there. Or expats who move away on their own and all of a sudden start their life all over again on the other side of the world – with no one close by their side, deprived of their family’s support. Feeling lost in this new reality, foreignness and the feeling of emptiness that bothers you subconsciously at all times. To me it’s a completely wild and still unexplored territory. Of course, I am a cat mom! I owe my life to my pets. When after the death of my man I lay crying day after day, the only thing that stopped be from suicide was the fear of what would happen to them after my death. And even though the only thing I wanted was for the pain to end, for the insomnia to end but still I lay crying, biting the pillow with my teeth. And I lived on. Until it stopped hurting and the wound became a scar.
Too good to be happy
People are experts at judging and putting others under scrutiny. My pain is my shield, protecting me from their looks. I know that regardless of how much it would hurt, I don’t and I won’t have a free ride. The opposite, in fact. It’s easier to kick someone while they’re down and unfortunately people exploit it to the fullest. That’s where my strength comes from. That’s simply years and years of training. I have my shield and I’m scared to even think how girls who don’t have that kind of protection feel. Who are alone not because there’s something wrong with them. They’re alone because they’re too good, regardless of their age. Like my friend I., for instance, who is merely 23 years old. She has too good of a job, too good of a GPA, too nice of a car, too pretty of a face and too nice of a butt. The only relationship she’s had was six months of living with a closeted gay man. Or my friend M., who – despite everything else – has simply too good of a heart. Or all my friends who were left alone with a kid by some lame loser. Everything’s alright with them. The same applies to men, actually. I can’t recall that I ever ruled someone out simply because he had some traumatic experiences from their past. What am I supposed to think when the same man whose divorce took five years to be finalised and regularly visited a shrink, files me under the ‘heavy emotional baggage’ category? The funniest thing is that this person’s life motto was ‘don’t judge’.
Burned to the world.
It’s not like I have a desperate need to tell everyone I meet the story of what I’ve been through, but it comes out on its own sooner or later anyway. And it ends in the exactly same way every time. Then I move from the ‘old maid’ category into an even worse one: ‘leprous’, ‘unlucky’, ‘heavy emotional baggage’. Hello, I’m neither a black widow or an evil witch! There’s not even a pinch of my fault in this situation. Unfortunately, people treat me as if it was otherwise. Have you heard of sati, a ritual practice from the days of yore in India (although to this day it still sometimes happens)? During the ceremony a widow was burned on the funeral pile with her deceased husband. I sometimes think that perhaps it’s not such a bad concept after all. Brutal, but at least honest. Today’s society does exactly the same thing to widows although more mentally, not physically. I’m burned to the world. Is anyone still surprised that I’ve become slightly antisocial? I’ve decided to be alone because I refuse to be with someone whom I don’t love. I’ll never be with someone boring, someone with whom I feel bad, whom I don’t madly desire. I won’t be with someone for their money or other material benefits. I’ve tried, I can’t. I will never be with someone who doesn’t share my passions, I won’t be with someone with whom I don’t have an intellectual flow. What’s more I need a man more intelligent, smarter than myself. One who will be a constant challenge. When I do fall in love, I do it with all my strength and force, sometimes verging on madness. Men are terrified of it, so those who do tug on my heartstrings (which doesn’t happen too often), disappear on their own. And it doesn’t matter that after two weeks of mental comfort I change into a completely balanced ideal who doesn’t even have PMS. I’m not given the opportunity to show myself from the more peaceful side. I have no desire to play a tug of war or other games. I have no desire for the pain and the mess that such situations bring into my life. I’m just simply too tired. And if someone asks me one more time ‘why is a girl like this single?’, I won’t explain myself, I’ll just give him a taste of my right cross. Or my right hook. Which would probably make that person extremely happy because then they’d have the perfect proof that something IS, in fact, wrong with me. And it’s best if none of you fall in love with me. I don’t know what to do with all of you, for fuck’s sake.
The cat mom – do you know everything about her?
She’s not only perceived this way by her family or friends, but also men aka potential partners. When I let people know – regardless of their sex – that I’m single, most of them KNOW right away that there’s something wrong with me. Do you know that feeling? ‘An old maid with cats’, ‘the cat mom’… Times and times again it has happened to me that people who knew absolutely nothing about me, tried to pigeonhole me like this from the get go. And it doesn’t matter that I spent almost my entire adult life in a relationship filled with harmony, happiness, peace and complete understanding. A relationship in which there was no room for arguments, jealousy or cheating and sex was consistent and if I’m completely honest – simply fantastic. If it wasn’t a relationship but a job, then with my résumé and experience I would have the best job offered to me hands down, if you understand this slightly extreme comparison. But why would it matter if around the ‘magical’ number thirty I’m single, they know what to think about it. The life of a single person is something foreign, difficult and not entirely understandable for me. It happens that I’m 100% satisfied with my life, it happens that I enjoy life and even that I’m happy. But other times I feel very strange because I don’t have anyone to share it all with. I suspect that it’s a similar feeling to the one experienced by people who have lost a limb and they have made their peace with it but still try to reach something with their hand that’s not there. Or expats who move away on their own and all of a sudden start their life all over again on the other side of the world – with no one close by their side, deprived of their family’s support. Feeling lost in this new reality, foreignness and the feeling of emptiness that bothers you subconsciously at all times. To me it’s a completely wild and still unexplored territory. Of course, I am a cat mom! I owe my life to my pets. When after the death of my man I lay crying day after day, the only thing that stopped be from suicide was the fear of what would happen to them after my death. And even though the only thing I wanted was for the pain to end, for the insomnia to end but still I lay crying, biting the pillow with my teeth. And I lived on. Until it stopped hurting and the wound became a scar.
Too good to be happy
People are experts at judging and putting others under scrutiny. My pain is my shield, protecting me from their looks. I know that regardless of how much it would hurt, I don’t and I won’t have a free ride. The opposite, in fact. It’s easier to kick someone while they’re down and unfortunately people exploit it to the fullest. That’s where my strength comes from. That’s simply years and years of training. I have my shield and I’m scared to even think how girls who don’t have that kind of protection feel. Who are alone not because there’s something wrong with them. They’re alone because they’re too good, regardless of their age. Like my friend I., for instance, who is merely 23 years old. She has too good of a job, too good of a GPA, too nice of a car, too pretty of a face and too nice of a butt. The only relationship she’s had was six months of living with a closeted gay man. Or my friend M., who – despite everything else – has simply too good of a heart. Or all my friends who were left alone with a kid by some lame loser. Everything’s alright with them. The same applies to men, actually. I can’t recall that I ever ruled someone out simply because he had some traumatic experiences from their past. What am I supposed to think when the same man whose divorce took five years to be finalised and regularly visited a shrink, files me under the ‘heavy emotional baggage’ category? The funniest thing is that this person’s life motto was ‘don’t judge’.
Burned to the world.
It’s not like I have a desperate need to tell everyone I meet the story of what I’ve been through, but it comes out on its own sooner or later anyway. And it ends in the exactly same way every time. Then I move from the ‘old maid’ category into an even worse one: ‘leprous’, ‘unlucky’, ‘heavy emotional baggage’. Hello, I’m neither a black widow or an evil witch! There’s not even a pinch of my fault in this situation. Unfortunately, people treat me as if it was otherwise. Have you heard of sati, a ritual practice from the days of yore in India (although to this day it still sometimes happens)? During the ceremony a widow was burned on the funeral pile with her deceased husband. I sometimes think that perhaps it’s not such a bad concept after all. Brutal, but at least honest. Today’s society does exactly the same thing to widows although more mentally, not physically. I’m burned to the world. Is anyone still surprised that I’ve become slightly antisocial? I’ve decided to be alone because I refuse to be with someone whom I don’t love. I’ll never be with someone boring, someone with whom I feel bad, whom I don’t madly desire. I won’t be with someone for their money or other material benefits. I’ve tried, I can’t. I will never be with someone who doesn’t share my passions, I won’t be with someone with whom I don’t have an intellectual flow. What’s more I need a man more intelligent, smarter than myself. One who will be a constant challenge. When I do fall in love, I do it with all my strength and force, sometimes verging on madness. Men are terrified of it, so those who do tug on my heartstrings (which doesn’t happen too often), disappear on their own. And it doesn’t matter that after two weeks of mental comfort I change into a completely balanced ideal who doesn’t even have PMS. I’m not given the opportunity to show myself from the more peaceful side. I have no desire to play a tug of war or other games. I have no desire for the pain and the mess that such situations bring into my life. I’m just simply too tired. And if someone asks me one more time ‘why is a girl like this single?’, I won’t explain myself, I’ll just give him a taste of my right cross. Or my right hook. Which would probably make that person extremely happy because then they’d have the perfect proof that something IS, in fact, wrong with me. And it’s best if none of you fall in love with me. I don’t know what to do with all of you, for fuck’s sake.
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