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Post by workingonit on Feb 27, 2019 9:59:25 GMT -5
I guess where your situation is different Brother @islandtime is that you ended up with an option that rarely, if ever, we see in here. That being that the option of going back to your ILIASM deal. That option is usually not present in most instances. So really, you are no worse off now than you were. You made the perfectly valid choice to return to your ILIASM. You are back where you were, and you now know that singledom is NOT preferable to an ILIASM situation, for you. Obviously returning to your ILIASM is not all beer and skittles for you, but it is preferable - for you - than being single. That's a perfectly legitimate position to take. Distressingly, the determinant of my failed attempts at dating related to my appearance. However long and personal a given conversation may have gotten, I could kill it quickly with the photo exchange. An occasion that really sticks out involved a conversation with a woman whose reaction to my picture was something like “Bye, Pig.” So, once the patterns had become clear (and recognizing that I had breached my 50’s), the leading options were: 1. Stay dateless/sexless in an urban environment until my appearance magically changed in some unknown way so as to be acceptable. 2. Return to a dateless/sexless marriage but lead a life enmeshed in a culture that I love, in an environment that I love surrounded by animals that I love. I can walk down the hill and smell the sea. I can walk up the hill and smell the cacao and cinnamon. At night, the warm wind happily obliges with a massage. In the spring, I can stick my head underwater and hear the whales singing as they pass… Given what I knew at the time, I maintain that Choice 2 was correct. But, even having made that choice, I never quite gave up trying to understand myself, my errors and ultimately my place in the bigger world. I have since learned some relieving and yet disturbing things. But, I suppose that most any lesson offers both exaltation and loss. That’s perhaps the most important lesson of all. I just want to say I am so sorry someone called you a pig. That is awful and cruel. Your description of where you live sounds heavenly. Continue to find joy in it!
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Post by northstarmom on Feb 27, 2019 12:34:19 GMT -5
islandtime said: "Distressingly, the determinant of my failed attempts at dating related to my appearance. However long and personal a given conversation may have gotten, I could kill it quickly with the photo exchange. An occasion that really sticks out involved a conversation with a woman whose reaction to my picture was something like “Bye, Pig.”
So, once the patterns had become clear (and recognizing that I had breached my 50’s), the leading options were:
1. Stay dateless/sexless in an urban environment until my appearance magically changed in some unknown way so as to be acceptable. 2. Return to a dateless/sexless marriage but lead a life enmeshed in a culture that I love, in an environment that I love surrounded by animals that I love. I can walk down the hill and smell the sea. I can walk up the hill and smell the cacao and cinnamon. At night, the warm wind happily obliges with a massage. In the spring, I can stick my head underwater and hear the whales singing as they pass…
Given what I knew at the time, I maintain that Choice 2 was correct. But, even having made that choice, I never quite gave up trying to understand myself, my errors and ultimately my place in the bigger world. I have since learned some relieving and yet disturbing things. But, I suppose that most any lesson offers both exaltation and loss. That’s perhaps the most important lesson of all."
Given the guaranteed beauty of his surroundings, I can see why that presence alone may have been enough for islandtime to decide that it was worth it to stay celibate in a sexless marriage. So, what I'm writing is not at all in opposition to his decision. Sounds like it was a good one for him that may guarantee him a happier life than he'd have as a celibate single. And, as I've often said, anyone who thinks they'd be happier in a SM than being celibate and single should stay in their SM as no one is guaranteed a fulfilling sexual life just because they leave their SM.
Still, I don't think that anyone should feel that they are doomed to never have a partner because one or even more potential partners indicates you are not an acceptable potential or real sexual partner. What people find acceptable and desirable in sexual partners varies enormously just as who people find attractive varies enormously. As I've stated elsewhere here, I have a friend who literally shot the bottom of his face off in a suicide attempt He has no mouth, teeth, has to obtain nutrition through a tube in his throat. He has no nose -- only nostril holes. As a result of his injury, he is legally blind and lives on disability. He is engaged to a woman who loves him and (although I haven't pried into specifics abouut their sex life), is physically affectionate to him in public. I have another friend whom I think is strange looking. SHe is very overweight and also is going bald at the top of her head, something she doesn't hide. WHen I asked her previous boyfriend (whom she had met through an Internet dating site), he said that when he saw her picture, he was afraid to contact her because he thought she was so beautiful she'd reject him. BTW, I thought he was much better looking that she is. Her current boyfriend obviously adores her and recently posted on FB how lucky he feels to have such a beautiful girlfriend.
I do think that if one is Internet dating, it's wise to have a recent picture as your profile picture. That way, people who don't think you're attractive won't bother to communicate with you. And anyone who says something as cruel as, "Bye pig" is a cruel person who wasn't worth dating. Sometimes the best things to happen are unanswered prayers.
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Post by baza on Feb 28, 2019 2:26:23 GMT -5
There's another point to make in all this. A very obvious point when you think about it.....and that is - "No one goes from "ILIASM shithole" to "Relationship Made In Heaven" in one grand sweeping maneuver that fixes all the problems in one big masterful blow" That, does not happen.
*If* (and it's a big IF) you leave, you depart ILIASM and you arrive in "Singledom" (you don't go to straight to "Marriage Made In Heaven" - indeed you may never get there)
So if you are not pretty comfortable in your own skin, and your own company, and ok with being in "Singledom" as a worthwhile destination in and of itself........I think you'd need to seriously question any idea of leaving your ILIASM deal, because if you leave, you ARE going to "Singledom", at least for a while, and possibly a long while. You have to be ok with that.
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