I Worked, To Mate
Dear [Mentat],
Yes, you’re right. While I wanted to make a name for myself as the vision-impaired man who worked a good middle-class job and did it well, a large component of that motivation had to do with thinking that doing so would raise my chances of attracting my dream girl. And why not? It was all over the media then that women liked the ambitious, goal-oriented, self-starting males. I figured I’d surely attract one if I could demonstrate those qualities. Well, as you know, that didn’t work.
[...] I’m [not] suggesting that none of the work was fun. I liked the weekend release parties, the periodic company outings, the dinners, and on those projects where the entire team worked in the same room together, I made some wonderful fast friends. I really felt like a part of the gang then, though mine was the only liberal voice there. As long as I worked, loneliness avoided me. But I was the only one on those teams who didn’t have a girlfriend or wife. It’d hurt sometimes to hear them talk of all they planned to do with their women on the upcoming weekend, not only because they’d be busy dong fun things while I only had sitting in my house alone to look forward to, but also because they all had the companionship for which I so desperately longed. Sometimes, their wives would visit us when we’d work late. So I got to know them pretty well, and none of my teammates had married slouches. All their wives were at least eights or nines. Some of the guys knew how lonely I was and offered that I was seeing way too much in having a woman in my life. Yet, there they were, with their wives. How could they tell me that I didn’t need that which they themselves longed for at one point, and could now take for granted?
Yes, I felt the high of knowing that we were developing software that would change the worlds of lawyers and paralegals worldwide. All our missions seemed important. You know after all, that [place were I worked] is a premiere company and one of the few capable of affecting such a large percentage of the legal industry customers. So while our work may not have been as world-changing as that on the Apple computer, it did nonetheless, thrill us just the same. And that high was potent, and while it lasted, I was very happy and didn’t think much about being alone. But it never lasted for more than a few weeks at a stretch, only happened five or six time during my tenure, and when the high of the last successfully implemented project [faded], there blew again that cold, somber draft down my stairs. I loved the reverence for our revolutionary work in the industry. But at the same time, it just didn’t mean that much. I suppose it’s like hoping for a big Harley-Davidson motorcycle for Christmas, only to find a single-speed mini-bike under the tree. The mini-bike is okay, but the Harley would have been so much better and so much closer to what the kid really wanted. I enjoyed my success in this way — half-heartedly. Any time success appeared, my attitude was: Well, this is nice, but when’s the woman going to come? Like the child on Christmas day who sadly shakes his head to find a shirt inside the gift wrapping instead of the radio, success often filled me with a bitter-sweet, grateful-but-still-disappointed feeling. I believe that achievement would have been so much happier feeling if I’d had someone special with whom to share it.
I don’t know. I was pretty inspired at that job, especially during the first ten years, and accomplished a great deal. How much more inspiring would it have had to be to effectively quell my love lust? I doubt it could have been very much more inspiring than it was. Their rates of attrition were among the lowest in the industry for several of those fifteen years I worked there, and rarely did you hear someone complain about the culture, or personally slam another worker. They used to do company-wide surveys, some of them even mandatory for all to complete. They’d ask about overall satisfaction with the office environment, managers, compensation system, and performance rating system, company direction, the vision of the leadership, and such. Then, they’d share the results with everyone. Now as I recall, people felt on the whole like they were part of a good cause, and were happy with levels of compensation and how bonus rewards were given. I don’t mean to suggest that [the company] was perfect, for they [in my view] certainly did not, in the end, treat me very well. But for most, things seemed pretty good if the survey results can be trusted. The company seemed adept at motivating its workers to strive for greatness. But I just couldn’t get excited about the ride, if I had to ride alone.
At the parties, the women used to move away when they saw me coming, or they’d quickly engross themselves in conversation with friends. Often, if they did remain, it was because they thought I needed help seeing something, and they just wanted to do good if not for me directly, then for God as they believed in Him. I was never a very popular guy, neither when I tried hard to be so, nor when I tried not. True, many took pity on me, but not enough to reach out to me in love. They never regarded me as a fully respectable male, even though I held a higher position than most of them. You could say, as others have hinted, that perhaps they avoided me because they knew I was alone and looking for love, and that if I hadn’t looked so openly (read that, so desperately), that more of them might have befriended me. Maybe so. But my sense was that their aversion had more to do with my essence than my specific behaviors. If they’d really found me attractive they’d have welcomed my interest, just as they welcomed advances from other “more desirable” guys. No, while the parties there were nice diversions, they were also constant reminders of just how much of an outsider I really was. That state of affairs gets really old after a few years, no matter how well the company motivates its employees toward excellence.
In short, I was not able to quell my love lust with unrelated achievements. Maybe this is why I want to impress on you that you probably won’t find complete fulfillment in your life without first finding love. But then in light of your recent emails, you already know that. So I’ll stop belaboring the point.
