There is a tremendous freedom in not needing others to validate your existence. But, there's also a price. And the price is this, you can no longer play the old game. You can no longer pretend the theatrical performances of conventional romance are real. You can't fake being swept away when you see too clearly how the sweeping is done. This is where loneliness comes in. Not the loneliness of being physically alone. That's easy. You can sit by yourself for hours and feel prefectly content. No this is a different kind of loneliness. It's the loneliness of seeing through a game that everyone else still play. It's like being the only adult at a children's party. The childeren are having a wonderful time. They are completely absorbed in their games. But you can't join them. Not because you don't want to. But because you can't make yourself believe the games are real anymore. You meet someone. They are attractive. They are interesting. They seem to like you. And in the old days this is where the story would begin.
The story of pursuit and conquest. Of longing and fulfillment. Of two people finding each other in the vastness of the world. But now you see the story before it even starts. You see how it will unfold. The initial intoxication. The gradual revelation of flaws. The negotiation of meads. The slow recognition that neither of you can give the other what they are really looking for because what they're looking for doesn't exist outside themselves. And so you hesitate not out of fear but out of clarity. You cannot walk into a trap when you see it so plainly.
You cannot drink the poison when you know what's in the cup. And this hesitation, this inability to throw yourself in the old drama, it sets you apart.
Others sense it. They feel that you are not playing by the usual rules. And it makes them uncomfortable. Or it makes them curious but either way it creates distance. Here's what nobody tells you about awakening it raises the standard. Before you might have been content with someone who made you laugh. Someone who found you attractive. Someone who filled the evenings with conversation.
But now that's not enough. You are looking for something else. Something that has no name in the usual vocabulary of romance. You are looking for someone who has also seen through the game. Someone who knows they are already whole.

Alan Watts
Art:Laura Makabresku