Should I stay or should I go?

Should I stay or should I go?

In my late teens, I had a propensity toward travel and change; I thirsted to know more and couldn't stay in one place very long at all. But after a stint in college and a trip halfway around the world, I came home and settled down. I now had an inclination to nest, which was well intentioned, I just didn't have the tools necessary.

It's funny how normal people try to act manic, when those of us who are manic just wish to act normal. My attempting to assume the role of "working stiff, loving husband, proud father, and active family man" seemed to falter somewhere between my need for being needed and my want to fill the vacant nighttimes with more than just holding a sleeping angel. I was like a developmentally challenged six year old trying to put the square peg in the round hole.

Now I'm an emotionally-developmentally challenged twenty-something living in a town strewn with hearts I was given and broke. I held each one like Lennie held Curley's wife, stroking their soft hair, but comfort gave way to fear, and when they got spooked I broke their neck. Figuratively, of course. And quite frankly, the bodies are starting to smell.

I don't know if it's the small town thing or if I've really created some type of delusion that people see instead of my true being. In the last month, some of the people I feel closest too not only thought I was still seeing someone, but a few of them didn't even know I'd been dating someone for the past couple years. I realize she hadn't been out with me in some time, but I always spoke of her well and freely, assuming people had stayed abreast of all our turmoil. I now understand that the few who cared knew me. The rest were just there for my entertainment and not my comfort.

So again, I've considered moving ("Oh, the moving thing again?" my coworker blurted out with a type of arrogance that intimated that this was my latest try in a secession of failures. Which, in effect, it is.) away from this town and trying to start over somewhere else. And for once, it doesn't seem like a bad thing at all. Hear me out:

1. I need new friends. I don't mean this derogatorily toward my current cohorts. Perhaps I should specify by saying I need new close friends. It seems the few people that know me the best, and that I feel I can talk to candidly, fall into the categories of "too far away, "too self absorbed" or "are my ex-girlfriends". I need to meet new people that I can create a circle with, much like I had in Lansing or Kalamazoo. This town seems too small and too full of itself; it has lost it's humbleness, in my eyes. You know you need new friends when you're sick for days and the only person who stops by to help is your mother.

2. People here have preconceived notions of me. I don't want to go on and on about how wonderful of a mate I can be, because I don't believe I'm perfect. I have much to learn about both patience and application. Plus, I've tooted my horn in previous blogs, both mine and others. Here is a small excerpt from a candid letter that should suffice the argument:

Walking my neighborhood, this evening, I finally realized something so insanely valuable, yet perplexingly obvious, that I can't imagine how long I've gone without this knowledge. I am a good boyfriend. Truly. Deeply. Finally. A shadow in the dust and ashes of yore, I have emerged a viable contender for hearts in today's exhausted, free-agent-style market of love.

Here are my Statistics: At least five nights a week, for fourteen months, I commuted 40 minutes both ways to be with love, if for only an hour. For six months, I made sure love had the freshest, most unique flowers biweekly; always a tasteful assortment with a single red rose as it's center piece. At least twice, I alone pushed love's SUV between 20 and 60 feet, up ramps even, because it was past fumes and because I cared. Once, I took out a small loan so that love and her family could have the greatest Christmas possible. Through blatant selfishness from love, through indirect threats of bodily harm from an ex-husband, through consistent distrust, even through a miscarriage, I tried.

And this was one relationship. Sadly, though, I can't imagine anyone in this town could ever take me seriously. First off, I performed comedy onstage for four years; you'd think women love humor, but its a one-way ticket to the friend zone. Secondly, the only time people see me is when I'm drinking with my boorish (or boring, depending on the night) drinking buddies. And lastly, my only other mating traits are not something I can do publicly. A guitar playing, poetry/prose writing, funny-man movie buff with a penchant for karaoke? One of these posers gets churned out every ten minutes in America. But, in another town, nobody has to know that that's my steez. Most importantly, I can focus on finding someone who will accept me as I am and not how they have viewed me over time. My losses over the years make me question my effort (i.e. start being an asshole instead), but without a town full of constant reminders, I could begin again.

3. I need to date more than an empty bar stool. I can only assume that my leaning toward nesting-type women is the manifestation of two things: a silent cry out for change in my besotted life and my understanding that the nesting type are among the cleanest, most stable women on the market. At my age, there is no doubt that this is still my demographic, but I need to hone the search down a little finer. If my life shall involve a cocktail out every other night, then I need to find someone who will join me (this is key, because most of my relationships started this way, but my partners trailed off and eventually held it against me). I need someone with common interests; someone who will play guitar with me, watch indie movies and talk politics with me. Someone who isn't waiting for me to change, they just want to walk with me everywhere and grow up together.

This seems a bigger task than it is. Perhaps the bigger task is pulling myself away from the unbelievable apartment I have, the networking I've accomplished and the copious ideas with colleagues that I'm just a college-try away from performing, filming and selling. All because I've boxed myself in here for so long.

Most haven't faulted me for staying; they understand that I have been happy and do not judge my choices. But now lies an even greater evaluation: Am I best to take this show on the road, leaving this one-horse, sleepy-bedroom town and all it's heartache behind? Or should I stay and continue to test my metal in a low opportunity area, praying everyday that a dame, with similar interest and in her late- twenties, gets off the train here only to saddle up next to me at the bar and let me buy her a drink?