On Selfishness?

Of all of the things that humanity suffers from, why is it that I am so selfish that I can’t get my mind off of the one thing that I think will make my life complete? The betterment of a fellow human is far more important than whether or not I can get a girl (woman. I’m over 30 now.) to go to a bar to watch a hockey game with me. And you know what will happen once we get there? Nothing. Sure, I’ll have 1 beer too many because it lowers my defenses and I can be comfortable being me. When I walk her to her car, I’ll try to kiss her. She will or she won’t, but it won’t matter. Maybe she will and then I’ll call her then next day. We’ll get breakfast and start to talk. I’ll tell her that I find it interesting that since the dawn of man, humans have had an intrinsic desire to believe in a higher power. She’ll tell me that the new Taylor Swift album is really deep, or that Bon Jovi is a good band. Maybe she won’t let me kiss her. I’ll send her a text; she’ll ignore it. I’ll send her a message online; that will get deleted. Finally, I’ll get the picture and leave her alone and wonder if it was the fact that I’ve put on weight since school started or it was the fact that I have funny teeth, or the fact that I was critical of a Sabres player who isn’t really that good, but she thinks is ‘hot.’ Back to the drawing board.

Couldn’t my time be better spent? How about instead of cruising free internet dating sites, I volunteer for a couple of hours at a soup kitchen or halfway house? How about I pick up my nephew and take him to a park? How about I volunteer at the Boy’s & Girl’s Club? How about I become a Big Brother? How about instead of wasting my time meeting yet another potential disaster, I go for a run? Work on music for the songs I’ve written?

The problem is I know what (who) I want. Further, the problem is that it doesn’t matter what (who) I want. These girls that I meet could be really awesome, but I will spend a whole lot of time comparing them to the 1 or 2 people who I think are perfect for me. If they were truly perfect for me, wouldn’t I be perfect for them?

In short, I think I give up. I don’t know what that makes me. I don’t know that I care. I was given the advice that women on online dating are inundated with messages; even if they see someone they may be interested in, they easily forget by the time they’ve checked their messages. I don’t have the humility to continue to send messages that aren’t responded to. It makes me feel foolish, it makes me feel desperate. I’m not desperate. If I were desperate, I’d settle, I think.

I am desperate for one thing. I want a baby so badly. I want to hold my child. I want to protect my child. I want to see the wonderment in their eyes at every new experience. I want to put awful art on my refrigerator. I want to scrub crayon off of the walls. I want to have this being curl up in my lap to watch Star Wars for the 3rd time this week because it’s the middle of winter and it’s a lazy week. I want handprint turkeys. I want construction paper pilgrim hats. I want 1-2-4-5-7-6-8. I want elemenohpee.