It has been more than a year since my last relationship ended, and though I've dated a few guys since then (some seemed promising), I found no luck - that is, if we are to define luck as snagging them into a commitment. At times, even I have difficulty comparing who I am now to who I was before. I was tamer than the average gay guy even then, but compared to my present state, I was positively a casanova.
Especially those nights in Sikatuna a year ago, when I imagined I could even smell the guy I dated last week from the couch as I was fooling around with another guy. Where introducing someone new to my friends almost every other day became slightly embarrassing, even for my liberated standards. I spread myself too thin, trying to fit in my waking (and sleeping) hours with all the guys who I'm scheduled to meet. There was even this one weekend I had to date four guys. And there was this time when I mussed up the blankets with two consecutive guys in one night. Gawd, I've been a whore. And I suppose it isn't really surprising that I exhausted more than my body with my past sexual lifestyle.
I don't think I can be judged negatively from what I did, considering that I was single at the time and that I had every right to sleep around, but if I needed one redeeming factor, it would be that I was trying to store knowledge from all those meetups even as I was fucking them. I will not go as far as to claim that I did not enjoy those nights - of course I did, some of them at least. But I wasn't just in it for the sensual stimulation. I was also trying to learn. First-hand. And what I did learn made me stop eventually.
I think that what makes me a rather effective adviser when it comes to love/sex/other is my recently honed critical thinking ability. Inevitably, being a chemist will instill the scientific method in you and you will find that it is effective, especially when dealing with emotional issues where the mind simply shuts itself down. Years of being like this and my brain has learned to be aware all the time, carefully noting down important nuggets of relationship knowledge gleaned from my frolics. My emotions used to ride my decisions, but the years had made me wiser and now I've calmed down enough to put them in their proper, less powerful position.
The years have taught me that those who tell us to "follow our heart" are not exactly being truthful. Decisions made with passions and emotions are susceptible to fall apart once the feelings fade. And feelings do fade, whether you want to or not. At times, they even fade without warning. On the other hand, decisions brought about by careful mental deliberation are more likely to stay true, feelings or no feelings. Such decisions may not always make us feel good at the moment though, but what is right and what is wrong have never been dependent on our feelings anyway.
With all these thoughts sourced from emotions, I've been able to gather much relationship knowledge about my ideal guy. One who is intellectually stimulating above all. One who I am attracted to physically. One who has the capacity for depth, etc. It all becomes technical, if you let your brain work out the decisions for you. Being hurt in love due to one's foolishness is not a trifle thing to deal with, so even if it sounds paradoxical to sort out such a subjective concept like love using pen and paper, eventually, it will still lead to the less painful outcome.
And this is the primary reason why I've stayed single for the whole year. Because I've been letting my mind rule my actions.
In fact, my brain had been so effective at dealing with love that at times, it convinces me that I don't even need to be in a relationship anymore. Oh there are nights when I still feel lonely. Times when I meet a guy I fancy and I daydream about being with that guy, but they are becoming less and less frequent. What's more, only twice did I feel heartaches this year, and that was a record.
So what the mind does is that it culls off both positive and negative feelings, leaving you a flat, unvaried emotional state. I was right in letting my mind rule, and my heart had never been this bruise-free, but I don't feel anything either. I feel satisfaction at being right but no joy.
What's more, my mind has somehow become autonomous from my lower instincts. Being on a date now has a positive delta G, and I feel like I'm shut inside this control room, pulling levers to control my body, keying in what to say, and pushing buttons on how to respond. I've become detached. I've become an automaton. Like a perverted version of the Tin Woodman.
But I know that there is still this little boy inside me, this little baby, who still yearns to feel once more. I am aware of it, I can describe it in as toneless a voice as I can muster but I know that if I go on like this, that little boy is going to die.
And what's worse is I'm not sure if I'm going to feel sorry when it does.
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