cheaplove: The truth...shall set you free! If you don't REALLY want to be in a relationship, but are trying too hard to fall for this person because you prefer being in a relationship to being alone...well...be honest about that with the one you're with. Don't string 'em along for years by living a lie.

Just keep searching, for now I shall call you the seeker!

I hear you koolman.
Feeling somewhat the same myself.
Just want someone in my life who is prepared to enjoy life, be happy and have fun together.
Don't want to keep on being dragged into and dumped on with their drama. I have enough stuff going on in my life to deal with, don't need anyone else's load dumped on me as well. Would rather go it alone and be happy if that is the best option.
Don't get me wrong, I love people, but don't need anyone else weighing me down. Been there done that! Life is too short to be miserable for long.

I look at relationships now like this..I am starving to death..I look in my fridge and there is this beautiful bowl of potato salad that I know has been in there for a month..it looks sooo good, smells sooo good, so I taste it..there's something just a little "off " about it...I look closer and closer and there's a little mold here and there...I am sooo damn hungry though..starving to death...so I eat it..tons of it...and get sick as a dog dying from it and then wonder why in the hell do I have food poisoning?? !! Geez. Then I whine and wonder how to feel better after freaking poisoning myself. Lesson learned...avoid hunger ..fill up on good, honest foods and for the love of God, clean out the damn fridge.

for me,

I found recovery was absent of any desire for a man

companionship, sure

but no desire to find someone

as the world became brighter, and the sunlight inside me grew stronger, people in general, including men became sweeter and more lovely too

and then it seemed overnight but i`m sure it was over a few weeks i just felt alot of joy and pleasure and fun being alive and in the company of men

and laughed easy, and was curious about them, and appreciated their faces and forearms and voices, and cologne -- all the tangible sense-delighting things

and then wham !

i was ready and the universe provided

i dont really know what i`m saying
except maybe something about letting go of searches and outcomes and doing what you can to , what.....ignite yourself? connect with the warmth and fire of the world around you and others in it?

i dunno, you strike me as a cool guy koolman

it doesnt seem like it should be this hard for someone like you :)