Dating : Humanisms: What to do when the lid won’t come off the jar.

By: Kris Lane

Coping is defined as a means of dealing with a difficulty. To cope notes the connotation we are dealing with a problem. Understandably something emotional. Coping mechanisms are practices used to teach humans how to conquer difficult emotions or stresses while maintaining emotional integrity. In other words, nervous breakdown prevention.

In America, my famous line, we have hundreds if not thousands, of coping mechanisms on how to deal with singleness. We consider single a stressful problem to be dealt with. Being uncoupled is not a state of emotion. Singlehood is just that a state of being. You are single like you are human. Societal conditioning has taught us that single is a a behavior. As such, morphing a perfectly normal way of life into an emotionally charged process of thought. Indeed creating a large problem. Mentally conditioning humans to determine independence is going to make life difficult, dissapointing, and lonely, encourages co-dependency and the feeling of unworthiness. We then tell others to cope with this classical conditioning to avoid becoming bitter. Essentially teaching the behavior of avoidance through coping.- And we wonder why we are emotionally screwed up.

From 2012–2018 my life was a major roller coaster. During that six year span I divorced from a marriage that shouldn’t have been, found my way through two cancer scares, a severely broken ankle, walked on pins and needles at two employers who made my life miserable for being a parent, and ended with turning 33. Way back in my early 20’s, I decided to map out the next 15 years of life. I was stupid and naive. At 20, I planned the cookie cutter American dream life my 1st generation Italian migrant great grandparents convinced me I needed. Eventually, as year by year the grapes were going sour and I was churning out vinegar instead of wine, I modified my plans along the way. At 26 I decided to divorce, at 29 I started a masters degree, and instead of baby number 3 at 33, I decided to seek life partnerships. True meaningful connections full of integrity, insight, inspiration, genuineness, and community. I decided to start untying the knots to people, thoughts, actions, and fears that held me back. Not keeping me connected. In short I took Mark Manson’s advice and stopped giving a fuck.

Well, 33 came and went and two years later I’m still opening my pickle jars on my own.

Singleness in the American society is a martyrdom based on the conditioning that it needs to be coped with. We are made to believe there is a need to feel sorry for ourselves when we are single. I know this. I’ve lived this.

On the day of my 33rd birthday and the looming existential crisis of realizing the roads I had mapped out were ending. I decided to open my fridge and cope with stuffing my face full of pickles- obviously-. This devil jar however wouldn’t open. I hit the bottom to get the air out, ran the top under hot water, used a non-slip mat. No matter what I did the fucker wouldn’t open. So frustrated by this point I began to cry. “All I wanted was a damn pickle!!”. You see, when we are trained to cope as a behavior for every obstacle we come across. Reality is unbearable. The truth is excruciatingly painful, and we then cope by avoiding. All the while the truth removes the obstacles, the hurt, the imprisonments, and sets us free.

The reality was all the coping aka avoidance, I had done for years on end caught up to me. It wasn’t because I didn’t get to have all of the children that I had looked forward too. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t been on a date in years and the man still hadn’t shown up, received any invites to friends giving, or chosen as the fifth member of a bowling team. What did matter was the fact I really had little choice in the realization life moves on. I had to move on too. I had to let go. I had to stop seeking coping mechanisms and understand life isn’t something to be avoided simply because I am single. The truth shouldn’t be avoided because someone else says we have to hide from it to attract others. Integrity sees through walls.

The inability to open a pickle jar is the point we break out of a self created mental prison. It’s painful to throw in the towel and give in to the fact in America we have no choice, we have no control of the outcome, and are surrounded by the humans most afraid to uncover their own darkness. The American people are the least likely to face their own behavior and hold themselves accountable for it. If we show emotion it relays the message we’re human. If we realize we are human, devastatingly this means we don’t have to cope with it anymore. There is nothing to avoid!

When we learn to accept our humanity the abyss of excuses dries up. For you, for others, and for what you will allow going forward.

When we learn to accept our humanity, untie the knots that bind us to people, jobs, thoughts, paths, behaviors, and fears that serve no purpose something else occurs. We embrace our aloneness, singledom, and appreciate regaining the ability to choose ourselves. To make ourselves a priority, to heal the wounds and not cope with them. To finally take the time to discover who we are. Until we know ourselves, we will only skim the surface of others. Darkness is part of human nature. If we avoid our own, by coping. If we pretend it’s not there. If we can’t swim in our own depths we will never enjoy the depths of others.

To get inside the jar, you have to be strong enough to open the lid.