So, where to begin…? It has certainly been a while since I
last used this blog. And I've had my reasons – mostly a lack of inspiration –
that have made it rather difficult to continue posting on a regular basis.
However, recent events have brought back a little of my original inspiration,
and I've decided to release a new series of posts on here based on my
experiences.
For those of you who have been with me for a while, I should
probably throw out there that my situation has not changed one bit. I thought
by now it might have, but you needn't worry. I’m still essentially in the same
place I was over a year ago when I last posted in this blog. I've certainly
been through my usual share of ups and downs. I gain hope, and then I lose it
just as quickly.
That is the main reason I have decided to launch this new
series in order to coincide with the effort that I will be undertaking over the
next few months
.
Basically, these next several posts will cover what I will
refer to as my “last chance” or “last effort” at finding what I’m looking for.
Now, I know that if I don’t find it here, it isn't necessarily my last chance
at finding love. However, based on the dream I always had about it, which I
will cover in more detail later, this might very well be my last chance to find
what I’m looking for without having to let go of my original dream and find a
new one. And aside from that, if I don’t find it here, I doubt I will make
another concerted effort at finding something. I’m simply tired of searching
and coming up empty all the time, so I refuse to continue making an effort when
all I get for it is pain. If after this I am still all alone, I will have to
simply let go and allow fate to take over. If I find something after this, it
will be entirely by chance, and not based on a huge amount of effort on my own
part.
With that said, I feel comfortable diving into the real gist
of what I’ll be trying to do.
Essentially, I am going to make one last attempt to search
the world, using all the resources I can find, to see if I can find my heart’s
other half. I’m searching for that love that has so
eluded me for the entirety of my life.
I decided to chronicle that journey with the use of this
blog. That was its original purpose anyway; to chronicle my journey through
life, and my search for love. Besides, a blog name like “Notions of the Heart” is far too original and amazing to let it go
to waste. Either way, I decided that this particular journey might be one of
the most interesting I've had to date, so I figured it might be worth saving
and sharing.
While I have yet to decide on an exact timeline for this
particular endeavor, I figured that the warm weather presents a great
guideline. Basically, with spring on its way in, my hope has been strengthened
just a bit. If I don’t find what I’m looking for by next winter, I’ll probably
have given up hope by then anyways. And if I won’t have lost hope by then, it
probably won’t take long for the cold and dark days and overall dreary feeling
to suck what is left of that hope away. I figure that winter is probably an
appropriate deadline.
The real question in all of this is: how exactly will I be
doing all of this? Essentially, I will be utilizing every tool at my disposal,
including many I have not tried before for various reasons. In addition, I will
be focusing on improving several aspects of myself, which will hopefully help
to fuel my confidence and keep that hope alive for as long as I need it to be.
First, I will be attempting something that I have always
thought about, but never had the courage to attempt for various reasons. That
is… Online dating. Yes, you read that right. I might have released a post about
my feelings about online dating a while back. Even if I didn't, I will give a
short rundown as to why I've never tried this before. Basically, the concept of
it frightened me. There are so many unknowns when it comes to online dating,
not to mention several aspects that, in my own personal opinion, take more
courage than standard dating. I’ll get to those later. However, the main reason
I avoided it was because I was caught up in the stigma that it was a last-ditch
method. I thought it was for people who couldn't find love any other way. And I
didn't want to be one of those people that needed help to find what I was
looking for.
My opinions from before have become more and more laughable
by the day. Not necessarily because they were untrue, but because I fall
perfectly into the category of people that I always stereotyped as the group
that needed so much help to find love. I avoided it because I was afraid of
what it might mean for me if I decided to use it. What I failed to realize was
that I was exactly the type of person for whom these systems have been created,
and that continues to sustain these systems until this very day. Is there
anything wrong with that? I used to believe that there might be, but as I
continue to think about it more and more, I am realizing that there truly
isn't.
Are there not plenty of people out there in my situation? It
seems as though their hearts are created to love that of another, but they
remain invisible. Perhaps having a system in place to facilitate connections
between these people isn't so bad after all. Even more intriguing, is the fact
that many of these systems, such as the one I will be using, attempt to match
people up based on certain other dimensions of compatibility. This is
incredibly valuable in cutting time wasted on people who ultimately do not
share certain aspects of personality that make them compatible with another
person.
Either way, I continue to have various hesitations about
this whole online thing. There are too many to list and detail here, so
hopefully I will be able to tackle them one at a time in later posts. But I
figure that it is important to point out that I am still a bit wary of all
this, though I am finally of the opinion that it is potentially worth the risk.
In addition, my mind keeps asking myself one question in
particular: What if I already know the person that I am supposed to end up
with? I mean, I am taking that quite liberally. Is there really any one person
that I am “supposed” to end up with? I often believe so, but it can be very
difficult to say for sure. What would happen if this whole endeavor ends up
chasing away someone who really does care for me? I can think of several people
who might be in that category, although none of them have shown any obvious
signs that they would potentially think of me as anything more than a friend.
Then again, who knows? It is certainly eating me up inside wondering about
this.
In the end though, I figure that I should keep a record of
what could be the most important undertaking in my entire life. And even though
some of it might seem rather commonplace and ordinary for some people, it is
not to me. Each person’s life journey is unique in many ways, particularly in
the way that they perceive it. So, like I said, I will be chronicling this
endeavor with the help of this blog. Hopefully everyone can enjoy my journey
along with me, and can take something away from it. And hopefully, as usual,
writing about it will help me to better understand myself.
