Road trips, a.k.a “How infatuation poisons clarity of mind”

I believe I discovered a 100% working way to fall in love. A way that nobody seems to talk about, yet people seem to follow it intuitively. But I stopped using it, as there are no roses without thorns.

Before you start reading, I highly recommend playing this sound in background:

A sad song about a girl I no longer know

Ever since I’ve got my first car, I would take road trips. The gas was costly for a twenty-year-old student, thus I wasn’t driving every day. But I loved the road trips, so on the weekends when I had nothing to do and had some saved money from my side job at the factory, I was hopping into a car (or a bicycle) and drive. I didn’t care where I go. I had no plans. Just driving for a while and see where I ended up. I drove for a long time. I drove for experiences obfuscated from urban life. I wanted to isolate myself from humanity and live in the world itself for a moment. I stop by a random scene of nature. I wanted to get to know the area where I grew in. My favorite directions to go were extremely rich and extremely poor neighborhoods.

I always took these road trips alone because it gave me time away from the academic hustle and bustle of student life. Night scene, parties, drinking with friends and strangers, various women that I succeeded with (sometimes) or failed with (mostly). Alone with my thoughts, thinking where I was going with my life. It’s very important at a young age to have a long-term plan.

“Where am I going?”

“What am I doing with all of this?”

Because I was a little bit of a jokester growing up. I started joking less when I grew older. I’ve noticed, if you joke about everything, you take nothing seriously, and nothing has meaning. Problem was, I had nothing to believe in at that time, I had to search for it. Searching for it in a library was never going to work. So, I took these road trips, capturing all those scenic moments that stayed in my memory forever. That orange sunset, drunkards sipping vodka along the road, the sound of cicadas and a sweet smell of late summer. When you are alone, you capture surroundings with all of your senses. Those memories are going to be my alone forever. They become my secrets, in a way. These beautiful quiet moments that only I had in mind. I never felt more at home than moving more than 100 kilometers per second on a highway, listening to Polish rap and American emo-core songs. Except for one situation, that I will describe later on.

What exactly was about the road trips that I loved?

But most importantly: what knowledge could I derive from this love to road trips about psychology? They were like an unfolding story of changing itself. The subjective beauty that can be found only in change. And it was also very important, something that built up my individuality. The beauty and the worth of changing sceneries, going into a Chinese bar (with Vietnamese food, just like every polish “Chinese bar”) on a lazy Saturday evening, somewhere on the opposite side of the town, many kilometers from where I lived or studied. Having a conversation with a homeless man who “guarded” my bicycle when I was away, listening to his stories.

Stories that I’ve gained over these trips became stories of my life. And no one else has access to them. And that’s what is important!

Let me tell you: if you ever liked a girl, and you take her on a road trip, there is no oneitis in the world like the oneitis you will develop on a long road trip.

I can tell somebody about these road trips, but they will never see them through my eyes. They never lived them. This is part of differentiation and individuation. Pushing away everybody else, pushing away the world, living in solitude. I’ve gained first-hand knowledge from these travels. I theorize this increasing sense of self-reliance and self-worth wasn’t dissimilar with forging a tribe, in a way.

Except, I was the only member.

I had only taken one trip like that with one woman at that time. Just her and I. Let me tell you: if you ever liked a girl, and you take her on a road trip, there is no oneitis in the world like the oneitis you will develop on a long road trip.

“Alone with the woman that you love.”

That will really get into you.

The women I took the trip was physically attractive to me, but we never considered ourselves more than just friends. I had no feelings to her whatsoever, I was more interested in one of her friends. The road trip was just an experiment of sharing the experience.

She was tanned and had dark hair, while I preferred light skin tones at that time. Her smartness frustrated me at times. But the more time we spent together, the more I discovered her true nature. She seemed to be an intellectual type but had a hidden trickster, concealed adventurous, party-like side. She didn’t state that openly, but I suspected she was also hypersexual. When she was talking about other guys, she had many excuses. “He’s just a friend”, “I only like that he is tall”. But I like that she was cunning and sort of clever, and she had charisma and charm of put you at ease, even if she did something wrong. I realized later that she radiated no guilt. I sensed some guilt but I felt no guilt at all. I think that’s how liars form.

We were both more listeners than talkers. Between many moments of silence that didn’t feel awkward, she had some interesting stories about her youth that didn’t fit her observable nature. For example, how her stupid schoolmates always got more attention, so she had to use more dubious tactics to get the attention, or else merge into the background, into the shadows, and make things happen there. She liked to portray herself as introverted and shy when everything about her screamed “good friend/girlfriend/ material”. I couldn’t comprehend how wasn’t she popular in her social circles.

Sure enough, a romance developed between us. And this team, or tribe, emerged.

Except for this time, a tribe of two, instead of one.

I theorized the road trip was the grounds that romance to form because of the myriad shifting location. She and I were the only fixed things amongst the changing scenery. We went over half of a country!

What I’ve learned, though, is that there is very, very strong tribal side of every human psyche. At least, it was for mine. And I think it is this all-in tribalism that drives us to pair bond. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time. I’ve never believed in soulmates as a concept, but I wanted a woman that was good enough that “we worked” together, that we have some sort of functional team. It is only after I begin to realize, that it was my hormones, that crafted my attraction. It’s pure brain chemistry that made me like things I would despise. Things that objectively weren’t that great. She’s a compulsive liar, she’s a compulsive sex addict, all this stuff. But it was her humanity I was really interested by. That humanity became pronounced and revealed because of the road trip, because of the changing scenery. That, I think, is the core of what people want in love. That‘s what people are looking for. This desire to be a tribe of two.

Us against the world!

That’s romance! The “man up” argument that traditionalists use. It’s that there is true passion there. Not sure if I should call it “emotion”. The real romance was always an open road for me. Taking a woman with me on my adventure. We would be trailblazers together, relying upon one another. That’s what I’ve wanted — that tribal feeling. That was the “passion” to me. An interesting thing about “passion” is that it overrides everything else (at least for men), at least if you let become inundated by your passion. It warps intellectual detachment, it warps thought. I am a young man, still, and I was an even younger man, in the prime of his hormonal profile. In those moments I felt I can do anything. I tell myself:

I’ve seen the statistics, but if I love this woman, I would move mountains I would do anything for that woman! I would fight, protect, do everything she wants!

That’s the power of true passion. It’s euphoric to override logic, to override reason, a rational view of the situation. That’s why I never become hateful to the traditional conservative narrative.

If you are a real man, you will be enough! A real man risk it! You are just afraid of the commitment! You are just afraid of committing to a woman! Be brave!

It preys upon a very fundamental aspect of men nature. We can be carried away by courage, passion, anger as well, the desire to conquer, the desire to defeat the odds, to be the exception. Every man has within a hero and if we’ve been told hero’s journey involves fighting for love, over and over again our entire lives, what are we going to believe? For so long, I’ve wanted to create a perfect love through these road trips, with somebody. But it was only the lone trips that I’ve really found value in, in the end. Now that I reflect on every road trip I took with a woman, they “worked” . It made them have feelings to me, I had feelings for them, but it was a waste. The only road trips worth it were the road trips I took alone.

Time and perspective

There is a reason the elders try so hard to impart the wisdom on the young men. The young men are the most susceptible to the traditional narrative. “If you are a true man, you control the outcome”. Men have a nature to be responsible and accountable, whether it is by nature and biology, or by education, or both, it is what it is. It takes a lot for a man to decide to go his own way.

In our socio-cultural system with legal precedence, wherein everything is vested into a woman in the relationship, the man is at the woman’s mercy. It creates an unhealthy imbalance in that relationship, and at that point, we can’t express our natural desire to give guidance to that relationship. To lead something bigger than the road trip. The life trip.

Thanks for reading! 😊 If you enjoyed it, share it with your friends! Sharing is caring.

PS Before you question my authority, please remember I’m a professional teacher. You should always listen to teachers 🙃

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