Addiction

It's late, I'm cooking dinner, and starting to write this gives me comfort.

I've realized over the past several weeks, as I've met new dating partners and continued to move on, that I may be guilty of using men like a drug.  There's a precedent for this.  When I was a teenager, I used food as a drug in various ways.  Well, it's better than using drugs, right?  I'll admit here, for everyone to see (NSA, you getting this?) that I did try pot and related drugs when I was in high school, but I never really got into them.  But the concept of using something analogous to a drug to mask pain, anxiety, and just generally feeling bad is something I've been doing for decades without really recognizing it.

This can be a good thing.  In my need to move forward and avoid my feelings and my fear of feeling, I've done a hell of a lot of interesting things.  I mentioned in my last posting that I have the courage to push past fear and anxiety.  Well, it's actually my fear and anxiety that GIVE me the courage to do things like go to Morocco, work in Bosnia and Croatia, and go to swing dances on my own.  There's something inside me that says, what the hell?  I'm feeling like such crap anyway, I know I can do it.  I know intellectually that I'm smart and capable, and it can't make me feel any worse than how I'm already feeling.  And then there's the excitement factor, which is a great distraction.  I know there's a fortune cookie fortune that says, never mistake motion for action, but motion can be good.  And then there's whatever kind of therapy that is (shame on me; I majored in psych) that makes you take action even if your feelings are lagging behind.  The idea is that your once-unhealthy feelings will catch up with your healthy actions, and all will be rosy.  And that's what I'm doing with dating and meetups and things like that.  It seems like a good thing to do, and it certainly can't hurt (I hope).

So, back to using men's attention as a drug.  It's clear that OKCupid can be addictive.  It's like I troll for crumbs to nourish myself and my poor, limp self-esteem.  Texts are crumbs.  E-mails are crumbs.  Facebook "likes" are crumbs.  (One of my last texts from CG was more like a crumb of sh*t, but we'll leave that one aside for now). 

As Natalie at Baggage Reclaim says that if we have a history of poor self-esteem, unhealthy relationships can feel like home, and adds that, "Your perception of what love encompasses becomes very destructive. It becomes the acceptance of crumbs."  She also writes that, "With low self-esteem...you'll look for other people (and sometimes objects and substances) to create feelings in your that you don't feel yourself.  You make external sources the solution to internal problems."

This is EXACTLY what I feel like I'm doing.  I compulsively check my phone for e-mails from Dancing Guy (nice Peruvian 40-something father of 3 who takes me dancing but has said he's not interested in a relationship), and even somewhat from Neighbor Boy (smart federal employee who lives in the neighborhood and has 2 dogs).  When I'm corresponding with someone on OKC who seems promising, I feel like I'm complete or okay.  With Dancing Guy, who I've spent more time with, I replay moments of us together in my head to bolster myself somehow.  Sexual attraction plays into it as well...as if sex means connection, which means someone likes me, which therefore means I'm okay.  It's a false chain of logic, becuase with men, sex doesn't mean connection in the same way that it does to women.  But in any case, it's more the thoughts that I need.  I seek someone -- in the words of Baggage Reclaim again -- "to be given an exit out of my own life into coupledom with someone else."  But this is SO unhealthy.  According to Baggage Reclaim, I need to date myself and look at the process rather than the outcome. I need to "love from a positive place that's rooted within me, instead of 'loving' with a view to filling me up and making me whole."  And then Natalie writes a whole lot of stuff about self-esteem, and how how it's mine to fill and how my childhood is done and I need to move beyond it.

Yoi....(or "joj," as they say in Serbian).  I suppose it's good to be aware of this pattern.  I think I've been healthier with Dancing Guy than any of the others in the past.  (Although I did send him a snappy response when he canceled on my by text tonight.  I'm leaving the ball firmly in his court.  I feel bad, but I think I have more of a sense of perspective than I did with F*ckwit CG.)  It's a process.  It's a big big body of water, and I can't see either shore.  I need to keep paddling, keep swimming, and have faith that I will get somewhere even if there isn't much of a landscape by which to measure my progress.

And the childhood stuff.  My wonderful Aunt Beth confirmed that my parents neglected me -- in their loving, self-absorbed way -- when I was little.  It was my experience, which was different from my brother's.  My very presence made my brother's life easier.  The woman who wrote "The 30 Day Love Detox" notes that there are various ways to build up your self-esteem, and one of them is having a healthy relationship, perhaps with your kids, or perhaps with a therapist.  I've got those fronts covered.  It's crazy.  I remember feeling unattractive and like I didn't belong at age 3, for fuck's sake. Now, 40-some years later, it's a mental struggle to keep telling myself, "I am enough"..."I'm okay"..."I love myself"...and all of those other phrases that can sound trite but are actually really important to feel. 

So...what to do?  I keep plugging away.  I know I need to own my story.  I know I need to act as if...to act as if I'm confident, as if I know I'm okay.  I've been doing that for fucking decades, people.  When I get into a flow state, I feel good.  I act without reflecting or angsting. (Is that a word?  If toileting can be a word, so can this one.)  Later I may second guess (as I did with Neighbor Boy the other night...did I babble too much?), but at least I can enjoy the flow when I'm in it. 

But the flip side of all of this lack of confidence and fear of abandonment is that I choose partners who are appropriate to these challenges.  "The appropriate monster," as my 8th grade English teacher would say.  Hence, Dancing Guy, who is clearly seeing other people and doesn't want a relationship. He's a nice guy, and he's right for me now.  In addition to helping me learn bachata, perhaps he will help me learn some limits and boundaries.  For example, during our text exchange tonight, I did NOT say, hey, I'm free on Saturday.  Instead, I said, you need to make it up to me.  That's all.  And if he doesn't come forward, well, flush him, right?  If someone wants something different than what I want, that's just the way it is.

Anyway...I know I'm moving forward.  I know I'm making progress.  I know I'm doing okay.  Everyone has his or her challenges.  I'm out here in the "glorious debris," to quote Barbara Kingsolver.  I'm learning, I'm smiling, I'm lonely, I'm crying, and I'm blessedly here and trying to be a healthy, loving person.  Thank God I'm able to do it and to write about it, right?  Is this all part of a journey towards loving myself?  I damn well hope so.  It's got to be. I'm grateful I get to be here in the midst of this process, even if it is painful at times.