David McElroy

I was getting married seven years ago today, but I backed out.

I’ve written before about the choice I faced at the time when two women wanted to marry me. I was torn about what to do, because any decision I made was going to hurt someone badly. I ended up making the worst possible decision. I lost both of the women — and hurt all three of us.

As I get to the date that would have been my seventh wedding anniversary, I find myself thinking about that decision again. And I wonder what good it does me to know what I should have done — since I have no way of going back to 2008 to share my current knowledge and wisdom with my younger self.

The memories of the weekend during when I decided whether to go through with the planned wedding will always be strongly burned into my mind. I was spending the weekend alone in order to make the decision. The woman who I intended to marry was waiting for my decision, as was the other woman, who desperately hoped I would choose her instead.

From the place where I sit today, it’s an easy decision. I could lay out the facts for almost anyone and it would seem clear. But I was so wrapped up at the time in fear that was born of deeply rooted emotional dysfunction that I couldn’t see that.

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Why don’t I write more about politics these days? It’s mostly because I’ve already said what I need to say on the subject. I don’t really want to keep repeating myself.

I got an email earlier this week from someone who says he used to be a regular reader of my site. He was writing to complain that I’m no longer attacking politicians on both sides of the mainstream based on topical news. He said he used to enjoy reading articles that I wrote excoriating people based on the hot topic of the day.

“Your blog was my biggest source of news a few years back,” he wrote. “Whatever outrageous thing was happening, I could count on you to give it a libertarian spin and show how both sides were full of bull. Now I spend more time reading other libertarian sites where they have stories and links about whatever crazy things the statists are doing and showing how stupid they are. I liked the way you wrote it so I miss you doing those. You were entertaining to me and other libertarians. How come you won’t write like that anymore?”

Although I do still venture into political subjects in the news every now and then now, it’s true that it’s rare. I’ve written bits and pieces about the reasons, but I’ll say a little bit more in reply to my former regular reader.

I’ve made a fundamental shift in the way I view what I’m writing here. In a way, I guess it was an evolution of what I believe about myself and my relationship to the world. When I started this site, I was still looking at things from the point of view of attracting a bigger audience and from the point of view of convincing people to see things my way. Neither of those is true anymore.

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I had a dream last night about a woman who ran away from me. The more I think about it today, the more I think about a question that a reader sent me last week. She’s heartbroken about something right now and she wrote to ask, “Why is it so hard to find true love?”

Why are so many of us alone? Why are we looking for love?

In my dream, I saw a woman who I wanted to talk with. I somehow knew that I’d love her. How? I don’t know; it was a dream. We were both leaving a grocery store and she was ahead of me. As I sped up slightly to overtake her so I could speak, I noticed that she had lost one of her legs and walked with a prosthetic leg.

As we walked through the parking lot, she sped up when she realized I had picked up my pace behind her. I sped up further, but she started running as well as she could run on a prosthetic leg. Before I could get anywhere close to her, she was gone. She had run away because she saw me as a danger — when all I had in mind was the possibility of getting to know her. Maybe loving her.

I got into my car and drove very fast and very recklessly through the parking lot. I have no idea why. I almost hit a couple of people. It wasn’t anger, but I seemed to have a desperate need to — I don’t know — find something. Anything. It didn’t make rational sense. As the dream ended, I was close to wrecking the car and possibly hurting someone in another car because I didn’t know how to get my foot to the brake.

Somehow, I knew that I was doing this because the woman had run away and there was something self-destructive about me because of that.

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