I’ve been avoiding writing about Valentine’s Day, because this year’s occasion is the first where I have felt so, well, shitty. All around me, friends are married and on their first or second child. And here I am: single, jobless, and nearly homeless.
I chatted recently with a woman with attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD), who said that, at the age of 34, she still falls for the bad boys. There is a thrill in the chase that adult ADDers seem to crave.
That same day, the sister asked loud and clear if I was interested only in men who frankly were not interested in me.
And why, she said, do I always find fault in the men who are interested? There is something wrong with this picture. I didn’t disagree with her.
I wonder if the greater handicap is fear of intimacy or the diagnosis itself. I am constantly reminded of coming out of the closet about the disorder late last year, to the ex-boyfriend and to the guy who could potentially have been a boyfriend.
Even after talking about the diagnosis, I still feel guilty, like why did I do that? Every message should have a purpose. Maybe I am just naive by revealing myself. Was I looking for sympathy, or was I testing out the guy?
It feels odd looking someone in the eye and saying, "I have ADHD." I am not that courageous. What exactly is bad about this, we all suffer from disorganization to a degree, and creativity has a place in society, the ex-boyfriend had said.
It's bad, I told him, because I'm a well-meaning person with all of the right intentions, but the result and the message come out all wrong. I can't execute unless I am threatened, and my habits—talking fast, interrupting others, and fast-forwarding gazillions of ideas to friends and potential boyfriends—are taken wrong.
Maybe I am coming on too strong? And the second guy, the potential boyfriend, had all but wiped his hands of me a week after I told him about the meds and such.
I feel like the men in my life drift away, like a raft at sea that I'd held on to for so long. Why, I will never know.
3 Comments: 
