It’s Complicated

I never thought I would write the words in the title, but these are interesting times.

E. said she’s OK with me dating other women as it may take her a long time to decide if we can resolve the practical problems with our relationship.  She thinks someone might set me up on a promising shidduch (blind date) some time soon, which isn’t really how my experience of dating has gone in the past, but she doesn’t want me to turn done the possibility of finding someone out of fear of hurting her feelings.  I have no intention of dating other women any time soon, but it’s sweet of her to say.  Have I mentioned that she’s amazing?

I think E. and I both want each other a lot and are beginning to have strong feelings for each other, but we’re terrified that this can never work and don’t want each other to get hurt.  Although funnily enough at shiur (Bible class) this evening the assistant rabbi said that he recently met a family where the wife was not religious at all and the husband was very religious.  Maybe I should have asked for contact details to see how they do it.  Although it’s really the long-distance and financial issues that are the real problem for us, and the mental health ones (because it’s the mental health issues that stop us both from having high-paying jobs, causing the financial problems).  It’s silly that two people who like each other a lot find themselves thinking that logically they shouldn’t have anything to do with each other, but life isn’t straightforward.  It’s scary.

My romantic history, or really my history in general since hitting adolescence, started as boy meets girl, boy is too shy and self-loathing to talk to girl, girl goes away without knowing boy exists.  Then it moved on to boy meets girl, boy eventually summons up courage to talk to girl, girl discovers boy is a mentally ill geek, girl goes away.  Now it’s boy meets girl, boy and girl like each other, circumstances and logistics prevent boy from being with girl, even though they both really like each other.  Then what?

Sometimes it’s hard not to imagine God looking down and laughing at me as he rings the changes in the format of my life in increasingly painful ways.  I do believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent and that therefore there must be some positive reason for all of this, but it’s hard sometimes to reconcile these beliefs with the reality of what I feel.  I’m holding on to the idea that if E. and I are supposed to be together (it’s bashert), then we will and if we aren’t, then being together wouldn’t make us happy in the long-term anyway, but it’s difficult.  I have problems with the concept of bashert generally, which seems to undermine free will.  I mainly worry that we can make the wrong decision and miss each other.  The idea of missing one’s soulmate is very scary.  I can’t think of many things more terrifying.  I can think of a few, but not many.