Struggling

I've got my single head on again. I hate this. It's my frame of mind that weighs up single men that I meet and starts wondering whether they'll do, whether they're someone I could meet, have a connection with, be someone of potential interest. Despite logical head saying "you're not ready, it won't work", there's still a part of me that wants something. I think it's the part of me that really feels the loneliness. I set up a dating website profile again before Christmas. I deleted it after Christmas. I'm in constant war with myself.


It's difficult to explain. Part of it is being choosy, part of it is lack of confidence. I don't want just anyone. I don't think that anyone I would want would actually want me. My life has been full of crushes on people who were unattainable, not because they were actually unattainable but because I didn't feel I was good enough.


There's a man at work I actually quite like. He's cute, he's funny, he's interesting. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm an idiot. And there's also this whole thing whereby I am only a version of myself at work. I tend to separate myself - work me, home me, family me. I am different with different people, in different places. I think I do it not because I am interesting but to maintain the myth that I'm interesting. Then if people think I'm weird, or boring, or don't like me as much as they like other people then I can think to myself, "oh, it's okay, they don't know the real me".


So I hide. Especially at work. And I think of myself like a female Clark Kent, hiding my superself behind my glasses. I think of my talent like validation. It's okay that I'm socially awkward because I can sing. It's okay that I build walls between myself and other people because I can act.


But it isn't okay. Not in the long-term. My personality ends up compartmentalised to the point where I don't know where I begin and end any more. The reason I'm boring on dates is because I shut off all of the bits that I think will alienate people but those are probably the best bits of me. The part that feels the need to run because the wind picks up, the part that laughs too hard and too loud, the part that mimics the way other people talk and move (does anyone else obsessively try to copy Cheryl Cole when the L'Oreal advert comes on? I just can't get "worth" right), the part that is annoyingly curious and wants to ask questions all the time, the part that obsesses over crap TV, the part that wants to sit quietly and listen, the part that wants to argue for the sake of it, the part that starts crying when passionate about something even if it's just a moment of perfect contentment.


Over Christmas I spent a lot of time with my parents who never expect me to be anything other than myself. They are used to the whirlwinds and eddies of my temper and tolerate my sudden passions and enthusiasms with amusement and collusion. It was so restful to not have any walls up at all and, as I double-checked with my Mum on Sunday, they like me despite, and because of, my faults. It made me realise how much of the time I am guarded and hold myself back, not just on dates but in real life as well.


I don't really have a conclusion, which infuriates me as I have been writing this, on and off, for several days and I would prefer to have some sort of shape for the sake of tidiness. I guess I need a tidier mental life in order for that to happen.