∴

¹Why do I miss my ex?

I will be working, and then I will look out the window and think about wanting to problem-solve with her, and then I get sad.

I will think about how I could use her help, and then I get sad.

I will think about looking at her face, and then I get sad.

I will think about her smiling at me, then I get sad.

I will think about how much I love staring at her, I get sad.

I will think about how much I miss being held, sad.

I will think about the small, joyous moments of leaning our weight against each other, or hugging, or twirling, or simply being so happy in the same place…

I will think about our rituals ∴

I will think about being with her and how paid attention to I feel ∴

I will think about how nice it is to have someone I think is so amazing think that I am too am so great ∴

I will think about how lonely I feel, and how much I want that feeling of knowing there’s another wonderful human being who I trust and understand and believe in, someone who I know is trying her best to make the world better, and who believes in me. And now I don’t get that² ∴

I will think about how nice it feels to know that I am supporting someone, supporting someone I care about, someone worth supporting, who in turn just wants the best for me ∴

I will think about what it feels like to be in love, to feel loved ∴

I will think about all the fun schemes we ran, all the ways our joy and excitement toward each other compounded into something greater than the sum of its parts and led to such generative, unabashed joy ∴

I will think about kissing her ∴

I will think about simply being around her: the way the world feels more real, the way I feel more alive and excited and mischievous and serious ∴

It’s interesting how I don’t think about the times when dating her was hard and I was sad and go, wow, isn’t it nice that I don’t have to do that anymore?

Probably because, as bad as it felt, it was still part of problem-solving together. Even when I was angry, it was never me against her. I suspect that if I am ever in a relationship where it feels like we are actually fighting each other, instead of trying together to resolve whatever is wrong and move toward a better future for us, that is probably a sign the relationship is over.

It’s interesting, though, how so many of these thoughts roiling through my head while I drip tears all over myself aren’t actually specific to a specific person.

I miss her. And I also so badly want a wife.

I’ve told some people about how badly I want a wife. How strong it feels. I tell them about how I spent more than a month making an elaborate, over-the-top Why You Should Date Cormac website, and they say something in the vein of, “Stop stressing about it so much.”

I don’t feel like I am stressing about it. But it does feel like: wow, having a wife would be so much better than not having a wife.

There is so much desire in there. So much around what a happy, joyous life would look like.

I think about planning a life together with someone. Truly, fully, having someone who is always there. Someone whose place in my life I don’t have to think about, don’t have to worry about. Someone who I know will be in my corner, and whose corner I will be in. Someone to count on. Someone to be a throughline. Someone to plan and iterate with and just be my fucking human.

I want that so much ∴

I like my friends. It’s fun to scheme with them. It’s nice to know that we will be in each other’s lives and try to accomplish things together. But it doesn’t feel the same.

Friends come in and out. Friends have utility functions that don’t put me at the top.

I just want someone where I know, and she knows, that we both have each other at that same top level of importance in our lives. That seems so nice: to know that our priorities are each other ∴

And yet, despite how much I want all of this, it seems so rare that I desire a given specific person to do it with.

If I want all of these things so badly, why is it so hard to find a specific someone (an actual, real human being) to desire?

I feel so picky.

I made an extravagant dating website. I posted it to Twitter. It went mini-viral in exactly the geographic and cultural places where I would most expect to find a wife. I was at a party and two times in a row after introducing myself, the other person said “I think I’ve seen your dating website.”

And yet so far fewer than ten people reached out, and I suspect I will be unexcited about most of them.

That feels bad ∴

This was a meaningful distraction from my whole quest to do my best to help AI go well for humanity. It felt worth it because having a wife seems really great. It seems like a wonderful world I would love to live in. And also, I suspect that having this desire to love and be loved go unmet is somewhat distracting from my quest.

Being unproductive is bad, don’t you know

I’m starting to get back on the productivity train. Starting to feel powerful again. Starting to scheme. It feels nice.

And also, I really want a win.

I think about how I am not doing enough ∴

I think about how I don’t feel like I am getting enough wins ∴

Maybe I set my goals too high, but the big dating website extravaganza doesn’t feel like a win.

I launched it with an exclusive in The Free Press. I had never done that before. And yet the analytics show that very few visitors came from the article, and nobody who asked me on a date came from it. They all came from Twitter³.

So I guess testing out the power of getting written about was good. But also, that was yet another thing that led to me spending more time on this and wasn’t successful.

Bleh. Now I feel like I am complaining, and I can tell this is less alive because my tears are starting to dry.

I think about reading her writing (or, better yet her reading it to me). It’s so good ∴

There we go. We’re back.

There’s this way in which feeling sad almost feels good. Like, yes, I am feeling my feelings.

This is better than the week or two when I was like: yeah, I’m a little sad, but not thaaaat sad. I’m working on my dating website. I am making moves. I am trying my best.

But I was sad, and I was not making as many moves as I could have been.

More than two years ago, I basically never “felt sad.” Feeling feelings was an inefficient thing to do after all.

Have I swung too far the other way?

There certainly are people who, I think, get a little too debilitated by their feelings. I don’t think that’s me. But also, this absolutely has gotten in the way of the whole productivity thing. This combined, intermingled sadness and desire for love and a wife has probably led to less shit getting done.

But also: would I care as much about getting shit done if I didn’t so fully feel this world? If I didn’t think this wonderful, beautiful, precious existence that I (and everyone else) get to have was worth fighting so hard for?

But also, I probably always felt something like this.

There was a reason I felt dissatisfied lubricating the wheels of capitalism in NYC. Even if I couldn’t identify it, there was a reason I felt adrift and purposeless and sad despite ostensibly having everything I wanted.

I recently had someone tell me they understood me better after I talked about how sad I was about leaving behind my entire life in NYC (all of my people, my entire community) to move to a city where I didn’t know a single person ∴

Last time I posted here was around when I first moved to the Bay. It’s been more than four months.

I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything in that time.

I’m sure there are lots of logical arguments about why that isn’t true. I’ve heard many of them. I made the world’s most extravagant dating site. I found and helped start a new communal house. I have tried various small projects. I have a better model of what matters than I did when I moved here.

But there are no tangible wins.

I miss having someone I believe in tell me I’m not just flailing ∴

It’s crazy how quickly someone can enter your life and then be in it forever: through the impact they have on me, and simply as a new fellow human to be in connection with for the rest of my life (hopefully long and merry).

I still regularly call the ex from my longest, most serious relationship. There is so much in knowing the ways in which we have changed each other, and in getting to continue to see her trajectory through life.

I also recently reconnected with my ex before the ex before the most recent ex.

It was a little weird and stilted, in the way that happens when there are just huge missing blobs of basic facts. Like: oh, you live where now? Oh, you do what now?

And also, it was crazy how much, even over a phone call, I felt: wow, I really hope you are having a good time of it, and I am so glad to learn that you are.

You were an important person in my life. Even though it was so long ago, and even though you feel a little alien, you also feel familiar.

And wow, oh wow, do I have nothing but care for you.

I have fully stopped crying (although you never really know). This probably means it’s time to wrap up.

I wanted my first post back to be about getting shit done. I’m sure I will have much more in that vein.

But for now, this is what feels most alive.

Later, I am walking to the climbing gym and I record a slightly flirty voice memo ∴

Later, I am adding footnotes ∴

Later, Nathan and I have very suddenly found ourselves with an RV.⁴ I love a scheme ∴

Later, I have just posted, I am walking home from dancing, I think about starting to dance while walking, I dance just a tiny bit, and then I get sad.

1. I hope dear reader that you enjoy this first half of my present to you.

2. A house mate did in fact make the logical argument that being an ex doesn’t stop someone from continuing to think I am great, from continuing to believe in me.

3. Or from posting in community group chats.

4. Probably. This would be a fortuitous time to suddenly have an RV. Also, this means I should probably be scheming another driver instead of working on this post.