the forest through the trees

while my schizophrenic heart hardly allows me peace to live comfortably while seeking personal enlightenment as a single man or enjoying a "for better or for worse" situation with another human, it does know one thing.

i think it knows anyway. btw, i should pause here to provide a bit of proof of the aforementioned enlightenment: normally i refer to my heart and follow up with an, "or where my heart would be if i had one" or a "or the lump of coal i got instead of a heart" type of rejoinder. self-effacing or pre-emptive? you know i can't commit to either.

so, here's what my heart knows: i am not a sex addict or sexual compulsive.

which is something.

this thought started kicking around a few months ago when i went to work at my new job. turns out an old friend of mine works there too, albeit in a completely different part of the world. when he and i used to live in the same city and hang around together he was going through his sexual compulsives program. it was interesting to watch that journey and be there as a friend for him as he experienced it..

but a little part of me always wondered if my frequent hook ups or the not insignificant amount of time i dedicated to getting laid could indicate i was in denial of a similar problem. i always joked and said it was "vigilance, like looking for a clean restroom on a road trip" because you never know where your next opportunity will come or "boredom", kind of ripping off gilbert gottfried on that last one.

now i have answered that question. at the ripe old age of-let's say-37.

no. i am not. (in case you missed that earlier)

here's how i decided. and, no...it wasn't the fact that i was in a relationship for 6 years. simply going without sex for that long does not indicate you are free of sexual compulsion.

the summer heatwave of '09 hit seattle as i began to acknowledge these thoughts burbling to the surface of my subconscious. while i more frequently found myself tending to my small forest of foliage in my condo-watering, removing dried leaves or aged blossoms-i realized that i had stopped chiding myself, or amusing myself as it were, with the thought that i don't own plants but rather slowly kill them. then a few days ago i remembered the relationship guide for a recovering sex addict including keeping a plant alive for a year, moving into a pet and then maybe a relationship with another.

that's what it was. i can keep a plant alive. many of them. although some are less needing of caretaking than others and there are some that did not do as well under my green-esque thumb (just getting ahead of the silver fox's claim to reviving my schefflera when he inherited it as i moved from portland to seattle) i can care enough for the needs of another thing-and, ostensibly, that would include another human.

so what the hell am i doing single? what of those claims that i am too picky, always disqualifying people for habits i deem to be negative or other shortcomings? through some miracle, i am not going to bore you with my laundry list of those attributes i find to be disqualifiers.

the reason i am not dating is simple.

i'm not going to date simply to prove i can. in my opinion, that's why there are so many break ups and jaded and bitter people out there. people are dating-hopefully-just because they can. more realistically, they are probably dating to cover up the fact that they need to have their sexual appetite fed. which is to say they are dating for validation. again, that's why there are so many break ups. once that validation ends, the need is to move on to the next source of validation to provide what one isn't providing for oneself. that cycle continues until these folks find the one person that can provide that validation for them (themselves), another soul that is as co-dependent as they are or as afraid of what being alone suggests about them to the world (love junkies), or become hollowed-out shells of people (tragic and bitter old queens).

let's just say that i am not the guy to settle for very long for one of those latter examples. i'm looking for the guy who knows who he can always rely on and wants a boyfriend or partner to enhance his happiness.

until then, i have plants to tend to.