My Wildest Dreams

“Once the world was new our bodies felt the morning dew
That greets the brand new day, we couldn't tear ourselves away
I wonder if you care, I wonder if you still remember
Once upon a time in your wildest dreams”
—The Moody Blues, “Your Wildest Dreams”

Last weekend I had a long talk with a good friend. I came to the realization that my sporadic social aversion comes from people letting me down. When calculating an interaction with someone, I become more apt to decline or cut short the interaction because that person or people, in general, have let me down either in a particular instance or as a pattern.

Perhaps my standards are unrealistic, but a detached analysis of situations past indicates otherwise. I want for someone close to me to have a warrior spirit: To value their relationship with me enough to not just give up at the first or second signs of distress: To feel that I’m valued more than less significant things in their life. I’ve had an opportunity at this kind of relationship on a few occasions, but the opportunity passed me by for one reason or another. When I wasn’t letting myself down, other people let me down. Over time, the pattern made me cynical. Now I just wait for people to let me down.

Romance was abundant when I was young. Emotions flowed freely between individuals and the barriers to expression were much less rampant than they are today. It has been said that love is often clouded with fear and doubt, and I feel that is the only dynamic that I may know anymore when it comes to romantic love in interpersonal relationships. I’ve not found the fact that there are any out there anymore that will go over, above, and beyond to express their feelings for me; instead I feel there to be definite differentials in my life where I’ve found myself expressing my emotions for someone and not feel them properly reciprocated. At best, it’s frustrating; at worst, it adds to my fear of having and cultivating real, true love once again in my life.

I keep asking myself whether this was manifested my professionalism and workaholic persona within me, or if it was manifest because of it. Perhaps it even qualifies as an example of the ergo hoc post proctor hoc fallacy: Coincidental correlation. Regardless, the more I go through it with the fine-tooth comb of logic, I can’t seem to reason a way out.