I’m not happy about that. I don’t want to be 50. I want to be 23 again. Todat has not been a great day for reasons I won’t go into here.

Looking back on my first half century, I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot, but I fear it may be too late to apply some of those lessons. Of course, I still have a lot to learn, too. Like so many others, I believe if I knew then what I know now, my life could have been much better.

Don’t get me wrong! I’ve done some fun and awesome things. I’ve loved some incredible women (all too few!) and I have developed some useful skills and a lucritive career.

The one thing I know is I love and I love romance and I am no Casanova. I know how to treat the one(s) I’m with, but I haven’t a clue how to initiate the courting. In short, I know how to love the one I’m with. I just don’t know how to get with someone to love.

Have I tried? Of course, I’ve tried. I’m creepy. Maybe I might not be these days, but I was once.

I spent my teen years in a paramilitary group (CAP) as a training officer and drill instructor. I spent a lot of my time learning to be intimidating. Apparently I was very good at this.

By college, I knew it and realized it wasn’t a healthy thing, so I started trying to be ….less intimidating. It was a lot harder than trying to BE intimidating.

About 6 or 7 years ago, a good friend took me aside and informed me that I was a “missing stair.” The whole concept of the missing stair infuriates me. If you know someone is a danger, they need to be told and their behavior corrected one way or another. When I brought this up, everyone said it wasn’t their responsibility. Maybe not. But allowing it to continue you become the accomplice. You know about it and you let it go on. From my conversation, I do recall one… only one… incident that may have been taken as what I was accused of. I was accused of being a predator. Not a rapist. Not a person who touched anyone inappropriately. But the incident I recall I was following someone to ensure their safety. I know now that’s not my job. They didn’t want me to do it. I stopped. But years later, the reputation of that persisted and no one told me for a long time.

Did this event, perpetuated so long contribute to my current situation? Yes. How much? I don’t know. What I DO know it that after my friend took me aside, I did a LOT of soul searching. Perhaps I over reacted. Since then I have become ….cold. I can no longer initiate anything even vaguely resembling caring for someone because when I did… I became a “missing stair”.

BECAUSE I care, I have become paralyzed by this moniker. When I tried to care, albeit in the wrong way way back then, I became labeled as a missing stair…. a predator. So now, I can’t bring myself to initiate …..anything…. that might remotely be construed as “creepy”.

I don’t know where to go from there. My last two relationships were initiated by the women I dated. If I talk about my feelings for anyone, I end up talking in an emotionless, logical, and direct manner. Maybe I am on the autistic spectrum and do not interpret subtle signals correctly. I need to be direct and I also need others to be direct to me.

For now, then, I’ll be emotionless and direct. If I tell you I like you, please take that as an attempt to court you or at least initiate a courtship. If you answer anything other than a direct and clear acceptance, I must presume your reply to be a rejection and I will act accordingly. Nothing but clear, enthusiastic consent will do.

A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man – promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.

Beautiful Girls (1996)

It is THAT day when the world reminds me how worthless I am.

I got to thinking of those people who have expressed an interest in me over the years and how I felt about them.

Rejection hurts. When you really care for other people we often feel bad about telling someone, “I’m just not interested in that kind of relationship with you right now.” I think it is a really important thing to learn to say though, and just as important, to learn to communicate that message in the gentlest possible manner in which it will be clearly understood. I don’t mean you’ll always need to be super caring and gentle. Some people need a rolled up newspaper to the snout and a loud, “NO!” But not everyone.

I say this because I see people talk about “the supposed nice guy” and the “incel” and I think, there but for the graces of a few special people in my life, could have been me. It was not, as you might suspect, someone letting down gently that did it though.

It was someone expressing interest in me and me letting them down gently.

I had to learn to show compassion because I genuinely liked them (I was going to say most, but I can’t really say there were any I didn’t like…) and not only didn’t want to hurt them but also didn’t want to lose the friendship we had. I suddenly found myself putting someone else in the “friend zone” and it turned my world upside down because I experienced the other side of the equation.

Relationships and attraction and interest are complicated and sometimes fluid things. The friend zone is a real thing and so is the fuck zone and the borders are sometimes fuzzy and sometimes changing.

The point here is to have patience with people as much as you can. Tell them you’re interested in something else if you really are. Learn to accept that they may like you but “not in that way”. Learn to tell people you are not interested in that way. If you both do this and are honest, you didn’t lose anything unless you choose to. We may not be in control of our feelings but we can definitely be in full control of our actions.

And so I’d like to thank those who told me they were interested in me who I had to let down gently. You’re a big part of why I did not end up like so many others. Be kind. Be honest. Be direct. Be bold. Communicate.

Yes, of course there are different kinds of love and there is no restriction on many of them.

But regarding romantic love, it works best (works at all) if there is real reciprocity. They say it takes two to tango. I can feel and experience loving intensely, but when are – writing here – is the only outlet, when one is denied the experience of lavishing that love in a way that results in exuberant joy of the recipient, it festers and rots.

Fantasy is a partially effective preservative, but imperfect and also prone to entropy.

I cannot count the times I see someone and all I want to do is wrap my arms around them and tell them they are wonderful and worthy and incredibly loved. I empathize with their plight and want nothing byt joy and prosperity for them. I want them to know they are loved.

But… I know… from enough painful experience that any attempt I make at that will be awkward at best, and more likely come off as inappropriate.

I want to love. I want to make one (or more… I’m not picky there) beloved feel… loved.

…but I’m not finding people I can do that to who are openly receptive of those emotional outbursts from me.

….and I don’t even know where to start. So I ope to begin with the only aspect I can control: Making myself a better person who others might feel safe around and who might be appreciative of a little affection… from me.

I am remarkably thankful for the family I have. Over the years, my immediate family is growing smaller in number. I spent this year, like the last, with only my mother to share the day.

I watch on social media as my friends and colleagues spend Christmas with their children. It is, after all, a holiday that has come to be very child oriented.

Somehow it seems like I should have begun this day sleeping next to my love as our tiny offspring awakened us all too early, excited at what Santa had left under our tree. I should be wrangling the kids and making coffee, maybe eggs and bacon or warm oatmeal. Family photos in front of the tree and perhaps the fireplace.

For over 30 years, people told me that the right person will come along at the right time. I don’t have a lot of hope for that now. I don’t know what I might have done for the fates, gods, or whatever powers there are in the universe to deny me a life partner. I don’t know what I did to deserve the be alone in life. I don’t know what I did wrong. With every year that passes, my hope dwindles.

I don’t know what to do. All I can do is continue to live and be the best I can. Just in case.

Just in case someone does come along.

I don’t even like the toxic kind of masculinity. I don’t like degrading people, least of all my partner(s). I do not find making love to be an angry thing, nor raising a family to be a matter of dominating those closest to you.

I long for love.

I long for the act and acts of loving. I want to make eye contact and bring my beloved a cup of their favorite tea and a warm blanket. I want to be there to listen to how their day went and make plans for our future time together. I long to understand absolutely everything about them and know them more and more throughout our time together. I want to participate in their hopes and dreams, assuage their fears, go on adventures, and make life worth living for all of us.

I want to hold hands in private and in public – in bed and in a theater and in the streets. I want to run my fingers through their hair and kiss passionately in celebration of every little win we have. I want to be with them and gently kiss their tears in times of sorrow. I want to nurse them back to health when they are sick and shout encouragements when they are pushing to their max at the gym.

I want to be with them.

I want to love.

I want a partner for all these things.

No one likes to be around someone when they are sad and lonely. This causes a vicious feedback loop.

Most days I work VERY hard t put on a show that I’m OK. I don’t like it, but I have to. If I don’t, things will only get worse. Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes it is all I can do to hold it together.

If I hug you a little too long or a little too tight, please be gentle.