River: Loving a loner

[mdlbear]

I must have been hell to live with, our first few years together. I probably still am. I have it on good authority that I was "a pill, and a hard pill to swallow", but I suspect that's understating the case considerably. I've always been something of a loner.

What distinguishes a loner, I think, is not whether they want to be with other people. I wanted companionship desperately. Too desperately, but I'll get to that later. What distinguishes a loner is how they react to stress: fear, pain, sickness, desperation... Most people, I think, reach out to other people for help. A loner needs to be alone, and either withdraws or lashes out and drives other people away.

The loner doesn't necessarily want to be alone. I spent most of high school and college feeling terribly lonely and depressed. But a loner is, fundamentally, more comfortable with nobody else around. They have their hobbies, their job; their time is their own. They don't have to share their time or their attention.

Having a companion makes them happy when things are going well and things are relaxed, but drives them crazy when they're stressed and feeling time or financial pressure. Having someone dependent on them -- a spouse or a child -- is terrifying.

When most people are stressed or unhappy or sick, they reach out to other people. Their friends, their parents, their spouse. They want to be taken care of and hugged and paid attention to.

When a loner is stressed or unhappy or sick, they just want to crawl into their nice, safe, lonely cave. Maybe they lash out in anger to drive off anyone who gets too close; maybe they run away in terror. Maybe they just curl up into a ball like a porcupine, with their prickly spines on the outside.

 

If I'm a loner, how did I end up married for over three decades, with two kids, two cars, and two mortgages?

Remember I mentioned that desperation drives people away? Want companionship too much, and if you're a loner it makes you less likely to get it.

What a loner thinks they want in a lifetime companion is another loner: somebody as self-sufficient and geeky as they are. It might work; I've never tried it. What I was lucky enough to get -- more accurately, the person I was lucky enough to have find me -- was exactly what I needed and never realized that I needed: somebody gregarious and friendly and outgoing, with a huge network of friends and a talent for organizing big parties. With enough interests in common that we could share a happy weekend event together, and enough persistence to darned-well drag me to SCA tourneys and science fiction conventions until I got used to the idea that I enjoyed them.

But even that isn't the main thing; I'd probably have been equally happy with another loner, if only they'd found me and been tenacious enough to keep me. I'll never know. The important thing about Colleen is that she did find me, she loved me anyway and didn't let me drive her away. She still loves me anyway, and she still doesn't let anything I do drive her away. The ballad of Tam Lin comes to mind.

'They'll turn me in thy arms, lady,
An adder and a snake;
But hold me fast, let me na gae,
To be your warldly mate.

'They'll turn me in your arms, lady,
A grey greyhound to girn;
But hald me fast, let me na gae,
The father o your bairn.

They'll turn me in your arms, lady,
A red het gad o iron;
Then hand me fast, and be na feard,
I'll do to you nae harm.

'They'll turn me in your arms, lady,
A mother-naked man;
Cast your green kirtle owr me,
To keep me frae the rain.

Loving a loner is difficult. They're prickly and cranky and awkward, and most of the time convinced that they'd be happier if only you'd go away and leave them alone. It takes patience, and tenacity, and stubbornness. But deep down they know -- I know, anyway -- that they couldn't possibly have found you. You found them, and recognized something in them that you loved, and kept on loving them even when they didn't think they wanted you to.

Every once in a while Colleen asks, "why do you love me?" My answer is always the same: "Because you love me."

Comments

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

What a loner thinks they want in a lifetime companion is another loner: somebody as self-sufficient and geeky as they are. It might work; I've never tried it.

Oh, it can work. (10 years, so far so good!) My husband and I go so far as to have separate bedrooms. We both need a lot of alone time. But when we stretch and yawn and realize we've been (coding, soldering, writing music, reading) for 8 hours solid, and crawl out of our caverns of solitude, there's someone else there who understands. A lot of people don't understand how our marriage survives with so much separateness. But it's more like our marriage is what glues the periods of aloneness together. It turns a pile of lonesome broken glass in to a stained glass window.

[mdlbear]

I love that image.

It certainly sounds very different from our marriage, but I can see how it works. I expect that tenacity and tolerance are still an important part of it.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for articulating these things. As I have mentioned before, there seem to be many parallels between your marriage to Colleen with Patrick and my marriage. Of course we didn't start our relationship until middle age and had many years of friendship under our belts before we became a couple. It seems to me that you and Colleen have thoroughly trod the floorboards of the quiet loner/social extrovert relationship ahead of us and I enjoy reading your perceptions and years of accumulated wisdom on the subject.

Balance in a relationship is a delicate thing, and we are still basically newlyweds, our third anniversary is next month. These things are very difficult for Patrick to put into words. He isn't good at describing feelings at all, or identifying what his emotional or even physical needs are. That is part of the ADHD personality, I believe if given a choice he would certainly chose to be able to understand and articulate his feelings better. That gap in his self-awarenenss means that a lot of my part in the dance is trying to gauge what he needs by observation, guesswork and a lot of trial and error. I'm getting better at it with practice, and he is totally worth the effort.

It's interesting and more than a bit frustrating to realize that treating him the way I would want to be treated in any given situation is sometimes the worst possible option because of how different we are. Sometimes my responses to him seem very counter-intuitive, yet those are the ones that seem to have the best outcome. There is a huge learning curve, but you hit the nail on the head when you wrote:

"You found them, and recognized something in them that you loved, and kept on loving them even when they didn't think they wanted you to."

Sometimes stubborn persistence isn't such a terrible character trait after all, huh?

[mdlbear]

Until very recently it's been difficult for me to articulate my feelings; this is all new.

It took two or three years to debug the relationship; stubborn persistence is a wonderful character trait, and I'm not complaining.

[callibr8]

In my opinion, stubborn persistence is an *excellent* character trait! And it's been a wonderful inspiration to see you and Patrick doing so well together, btw.

[callibr8]

Most people, I think, reach out to other people for help. A loner needs to be alone, and either withdraws or lashes out and drives other people away. [...] Having a companion makes them happy when things are going well and things are relaxed, but drives them crazy when they're stressed and feeling time or financial pressure. Having someone dependent on them -- a spouse or a child -- is terrifying.

THAT. YES. EXACTLY.

Are you trying to ghost-write *my* memoir, or what?!

Seriously, though - you've articulated this VERY well, and I definitely see my own reflection in this mirror. Which I don't think will surprise anyone who knows either of us well, at all. *wry grin*

[mdlbear]

Thanks. Not exactly, but many of my River posts are indirect responses to things going on in my friends' lives. If it gives you something you can point at and say "see, I'm not the only one", it's worth the trouble.

I always have several posts queued up (currently 4 more partially written, and notes on 8 more). I just added one more tonight, so I'm running in place at the moment.

[mdlbear]

Oh; and can I gank that userpic? Please?

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes.

From the song I wrote for dunkelpig for our thirtieth anniversary:

At eighteen you were working a local campaign
With a friend whom for years you had known,
When he waved to a boy who'd just walked in the room,
And you turned, and your heart gave a groan.
"So this is my future?" you asked of your heart,
"This straggly, confused-looking mess?"
And I've thanked all my stars every day of my life
That your heart stood its ground and said "Yes."

Some things are once in a lifetime--
Miracles, wishes come true--
But once in a lifetime is all that I need
If I'm spending my lifetime with you.

[mdlbear]

Lovely, and apropos.

Have you seen/heard Eyes Like the Morning? (Hmm. Don't seem to have audio for that yet. Must fix soon. Catch me at OVFF, if you're going, and ask for it.)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Won't be. Want it, some way or other, as soon as is possible.

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

Gods, that is just beautiful. Wow.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

"When a loner is stressed or unhappy or sick, they just want to crawl into their nice, safe, lonely cave."

Oh yes. This is me, to a T. I'm not good company. I just want to be left alone. Depressed? Take a nice long walk, away from everyone. Talk to trees. Trees are nice company, and always good listeners. Sick? Go away and leave me alone---I'm the wild animal hiding in my den. And like a wild animal, I hide that I'm sick very well, until it's really critical, and then I hide.

Interestingly, since I've found Andrew, we are so in synch that we can read each other in this, and kind of blend together. He was in a down mood this weekend, and I just walked in that space, let him know I knew where he was, let him know and was I there, and it helped. We reflect each other back in interesting ways, understanding the similarities. It's the way we both hide the moody side pretty well and understand how and why we do it. It's protective camoflage. And we know we both keep loving each other when neither one of us can figure out what the other one even sees in each of us. So yeah, I hear you on this one...