Having it all, having nothing

I was talking to my friend today about our respective love (?) lives, and she was talking about how there's a guy that she's been friends with for a long time and she really feels like she has a connection and good chemistry, but she's not willing to take a chance to see if it could become anything serious because she's assuming that he's content just to play the field and she doesn't want to raise his expectations of him. Meanwhile she's started to date another guy she met on an online dating site because he has a good "resume" (nice, good job, handsome, seems considerate enough.... but that could just be his representative talking right now). So I ask her..... why not try things out with this first guy and see where it goes? Well, just like everyone, she doesn't want to open herself up and get her feelings hurt, and that she's just going to "see what happens."

This is what confuses me about people (and I include myself.... I'm still human): Everyone says they want someone to love (men too.... I always have to remind myself that they have feelings as well), but nobody is willing to open themselves up to another person to make that happen. Everyone is so guarded, but then want to turn around and ponder why relationships never make it past that first level of intimacy. People talk about how they were hurt in the past, how last time they trusted and loved someone they got burned, how they will never open themselves up like that again (that is the mentality that The Ex has). Everyone is carrying around this baggage, and nobody wants to set it down, so how are we supposed to find that person who isn't going to be like those people in our past?

I may not know much, but I do know this (at the very least from a logical perspective): You have to be OPEN to love in order for it to come into your life. I could pull out every analogy to this concept......the closed fist, the overturned cup, the closed mouth not getting fed, but basically if you are not willing to let love in-- which means letting down your guard-- love won't come in. You may get disappointed 10 times and that 11th person who comes along may be "That One," but if you shut them out of your life, you may miss that opportunity. By trying to hold onto and safeguard your feelings and being so worried about the past repeating itself, you miss out on something potentially greater. Whenever this issue arises I think about the Eric Roberson song, "What I Gotta Do" ("What I gotta do for you to see.... the pain you felt before wasn't done by me....."). You can't let past situations completely cloud your view of the future.

(I'm going to skip my soap box discussion on Zen Buddhism and the significance of attachment and suffering, but it's some good stuff that I might come back to later.)

This leads me to another issue, and that is the unwillingness to invest your emotional energy into one person for fear of missing out on something. And that "something" could be anything, not just another person (but most likely, it is)..... it could be the ability to do and say and hang out with whomever you want without fear of backlash or worrying about whether it's going to hurt someone else's feelings. It's avoiding that sense of obligation to another person. Casual relationships are fine and good if that's all you want and that's all the other person wants, but don't be surprised when some emotional disparity arises and someone gets fed up (thus creating MORE emotional baggage). You can't have your cake and eat it too.*

(*I had to research this phrase awhile back because I never understood it.... if you have cake, aren't you SUPPOSED to eat it?? But no, that's not what it means. It means that after you have eaten the cake, you still have the cake in your hand.... it's trying to have two incompatible concepts. For any fellow Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Infocom game fans out there, it's akin to having both Tea and No Tea in your inventory. Sorry, uber dork moment there......)

So at some point, you have to let go. By trying to hold on to everything--feelings, freedom, obligation, options-- you may just look up one day and find that you have nothing.