owner of a lonely heart

I am experiencing a rather difficult combination of emotions as I make my way through the volumes of assigned reading for my Couples Therapy course.

Such as: anxiety, sadness, jealousy.

The worst, though, is that of feeling despondent and hopeless.

I had this thought the other week that perhaps I might be "lucky" to be single while going through such a class. My premise: I can still explore and mine my previous relationships for understanding, but I do not have to endure (along with a dating object or spousal equivalent) the act of putting a current relationship under what can no doubt be a rather cruel microscope.

It was a good idea at the time.

Now, it just feels like a "sour grapes" argument. I feel like an imposter. And not just because my relationships are queer and this is "primarily a class about relationships between men and women," as my teacher so deftly put it last week. (I'm sure that's part of it, though.)

Rather, I am being reminded of ways I have screwed up things in the past, and I have no context in which to consider new approaches. In fact, the more I read, the greater and more powerful the sense of foreboding is within me that I'm going to be single for a very long time.

I'm the kind of person who prefers a relationship. Apparently, I'm just not the kind who attracts them.

It's hard enough for me to win and maintain friends -- what with me being some kind of "intense" freak of humanity that it just too hard to tolerate and digest. When you add the prospect that someone has to find me attractive enough to want to spend time with me, in person, and get over whatever barrier it is to the idea of actually *touching* me in a sexual way, well... I keep wondering why I don't play Powerball. I feel my odds might be better there.

Seriously.

So I'm reading this stuff for class, and I'm thinking two things:

First. Well, even though I'm not prone to dishing out intense criticism and showing contempt for my partners, perhaps one of the problems is that I haven't actually had the experience of a loving, truly intimate relationship. So what the fuck do I know?

Second. If I remain single, is it possible that I could actually conduct decent couples therapy?

And then, there's this business in the back of my head: If I remain single....

I love graduate school. I love the whole idea of this profession I'm pursuing and what I think it can bring to people. But there are times when what my studies bring to light is painful -- to the point that I have to remind myself there are reasons to continue. (I also have to remind myself that the grass is always greener over the septic tank.)

Perhaps it's the fact that I'm still feeling sick; perhaps it's the fact that I'm ALONE in this life -- that it is, explicitly, a path of one -- and that it feels rather acutely so when I am studying the inner workings of couples; perhaps it's the fact that one of my teachers has twice in two weeks talked about us "going home and trying these techniques on your loved ones," when I have no such "ones" in my home; and/or perhaps it is the fact that I have constantly had the notion reinforced that I am mediocre dating material at best (because there is always someone prettier or more ... something). Whatever the case, I'm reading this stuff, and I'm FEELING LIKE SHIT. Like mother fucking shit.