Preface to an Epilogue

My social circle tends to break down at seven to ten year intervals.  Recently, that has happened again.  Every other time this has happened, it was always with the idea that a new circle of friends would emerge.  This time, it just seems final.

Kerry, my therapist, suggested I use this down time - ostensibly between close-at-hand, socially connective relationships - to imagine what the life I have wanted might feel like.  She told me to imagine what it would be like to have a girlfriend who was genuinely interested in me, and the man that I am, and the things that are important to me.  She told me to imagine spending time with some woman like this, who would want to earn the emotional investment that I have previously given up so freely to women who really didn't wish to reciprocate.  She told me to imagine what it would be like to have that person around in the next phase of my life.  She told me to do this in the hopes of producing a directed and focused intentionality, an exercise in "acting as if"; Vickie tried to get me to do the same thing when she and I worked together.  This is supposed to bring about some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I tried.  When I try to imagine the next phase of my life, there's nothing there.  Now, before you go sounding the alarm bells and orchestrating an interventionary Chinese fire drill, hear me out.  I don't see my current chapter ending anytime soon, but I see things continuing as they are, in perpetuity.  I am trying to change things for the better.  I had scheduled two interesting and engaging social events for myself this weekend; both were cancelled by others for reasons beyond my control.  Sometimes, it feels like even God is saying, "up your's". 

I have self-image issues.  When struggling with dating, I had one really good friend tell me, "it can't be everybody else".  I've had one close female confidant who said  that, "maybe women just aren't attracted to you", and another who equated my appearance to being "gross".  Having already been down on myself, these statements made things worse.

So, it seems that trying to imagine some kind of future happiness is not working for me.  I can't even imagine wanting to be happy at all anymore.  It would be quite enough for me, at some point, to stop feeling sad.

"No Time", The Guess Who.