Judy's (dysfunctional) Rules

Okay, here are some rules that I learned from my mother.  Before I get to them, I want to say that my mother is a great woman.  She's smart and caring and giving, and everyone loves her.  She's also a hell of a lot of fun, and I really enjoy spending time with her.  That said, I've had some issues because of the dysfunctional lessons I've learned from my parents' awesome, totally functional, you-can-never-hope-for-yours-to-be-as-good marriage.

I know I sound like I'm whinging, and these are definitely first-world problems. But as I struggle to face my issues head-on and deal with them, I need to unearth those skeletons, right? Natalie of baggagereclaim.com says that what matters in terms of self-esteem is how you internalize what you've experienced in childhood. In other words, it's all about perspective.  So, hopefully writing about this will help me to get and keep some healthy perspective, so I can move on from it.

So...lessons I learned from my mom, who had an incredibly 1950s-era marriage to my spoiled (but also loving and well-providing) dad.  There's nothing wrong with that, and they were extremely happy in it.  However, most people, myself included, can't fit into that mold.

Here are Judy's Rules:

1.  You are responsible for other people's feelings:  If someone treats you badly, it's probably because of something you did.  If someone is treating you badly, the right thing to do is to go up to them and ask, "Are you mad at me? Did I do something?"  Then you have a deep, sharing conversation, maybe there are some tears (on your part), things are clarified, and it all comes out right in the end. If you did something wrong, which you probably did, you change your behavior.  In doing all of this, your own feelings probably get lost, but who cares about that?  If you're too emotional, nobody will want you anyway.

2.  The wife should manage her husband's feelings:  Since she is responsible for his feelings, she needs to learn how to manage them.  She needs to anticipate how he is feeling and how he will feel, and then craft an appropriate response to make sure he doesn't get too upset about things.  This includes being in charge of all meals (so he doesn't get too hungry) and handling difficult discussions, particularly with service people.

3. Falling in love with someone is an inevitable, happily ever after story:  First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. It's meant to happen with your Mr./Ms. Right, and you can look back smugly and tell the story, laughing companionably at the appropriate places. 

4.  Relationships are effortless and seamless:  As a couple, you either agree on everything or joke lightly about the minor matters you disagree on.  The wife is often the butt of the jokes, but it's all in fun, right?  Any disagreements are handled as described in #1 above.

5.  Relationships involve dependence and exclusion:  If you're part of a couple, you need to collapse into the relationship.  Your significant other defines your life and is everything to you.  You rarely, if ever, go out to dinner on your own, because your significant other might miss you and not know what to do and how to do it.

6.  If you don't have a man, you have no value:  If you don't have a man, it means you've done something wrong.  It's not okay to be on your own.  If you stand up for yourself, someone may leave you, which would mean you have no value.  If you leave a relationship you might not be able to find another one, which would mean you have no value.  You'd better think twice about rejecting any potential suitors (particularly Jewish ones) because you may not  be able to find another.  And that would mean you have no value. 

7.  People without significant others can and should be denigrated:  Those of us who are lucky and successful enough to be in a relationship can and should discuss and make fun of those who aren't. 

8.  Feminists think the way they do because they can't get a man.





Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  It's pretty depressing to list these things.  It should be good to get some sunshine on them, right?  And now I suppose I should counter these rules with healthier rules that I can abide by.  Okay, here goes:

1.  The only feelings I am responsible for are my own.  It's okay to have and appropriately acknowledge my feelings.  It's okay to be emotional.  Knowing my feelings helps me to live according to my values and treat myself well.

2.  Sensitivity and tact are good things, but we're all adults here and we should each be in charge of managing our own feelings.  Allowing another person space to deal with his or her feelings is a sign of respect, as opposed to the unhealthy codependency of attempting to get into someone else's head and control them like that little guy in Total Recall.

A corollary to this is that we certainly can't manage people to make them change in ways that benefit our needs.  If they don't or won't, the ball's in our court.

3.  Falling in love is beautiful and inexplicable.  If it happens, look upon it with gratitude and seize it to the extent you can.  Focus on giving and enjoying.  See it for what it is, enjoy it for now, and realize it will last as long as it lasts.

4.  Ha, you expect ME to comment on relationships?  People say relationships are work.  I mean, I know they're not effortless.  I know that much, okay?  I believe they take at least some negotiation from time to time, and that they're not all tweety birds and roses.  Here's the problem...I don't have a good model on which to base my description.  My parents always presented this sleek, shiny, effortless united front of a  marriage, which obviously didn't help me much.  I suppose my homework is to think about the relationships of friends, family, etc., and try to develop some more realistic images of them.

5. Relationships should involve both mutual dependence and independence. Don't collapse into them, but rather, maintain a healthy frame (as they say in dancing).  That way you can move together, without one person being dead weight.  And for fuck's sake, go out to dinner with friends or go to a happy hour sometime.  Honestly.

6.  The most important relationship in your life is with yourself.  You have value no matter what, regardless of whether you're with some guy.  It's important to nurture and foster that value, and to listen to what you need. If you're not happy in your relationship and you determine that you need to leave, it's fine to do so.  You may or may not find someone else, but this person was not for you.  It's better to be happy on your own than unhappy with someone else.  And being happy on your own is the foundation of being happy with someone else.

7.  There are many ways to live and be happy.  Partnered people who denigrate people who are not in relationships probably have some problems of their own. 

8.  Feminism is the radical notion that women are human.

Of Red Flags and Stone Carving

I feel like I need to process.

So....I've started kind of dating Red Flag Guy.  I say "kind of," because of course I'm scared and fighting off a freak-out response.  Why did I start seeing him, despite the red flags?  Well, it's because I felt like it was something I needed.  I was so darn sick of the 30-day love detox approach, in which you don't do anything passionate with a man for 30 days and somehow win his commitment (my words), and then and only then can you have sex.  It just seemed totally unrealistic to me.  I mean, how do you know that you want to commit to someone, or commit to trying to commit to someone, if you keep each other at arms' length, as it were?  And even if you do hold off and try to do everything safely and slowly, to avoid any kind of emotional risk and pain, honestly, it will still get you in the end.  It's like the Appointment in Samarra.  If it's meant to be it will be, whether it's something good or something bad.

That's not to say there aren't smarter ways of doing things, and that's not to say that I'm not trying to pick up on those ways.  I just felt like a New Year's Eve fling with RFG (which is what I said yes to) seemed like the right thing to do for right then.  Also, he's smart, there's chemistry, we enjoy some common things...so, I decided to jump in.  And since then, we've seen each other quite a bit.  The whole situation is kind of broadly defined as me being his "woman."  Saying "boyfriend" freaks me out...it implies things that I'm not ready for with him, as well as obligations that I would have to hold him to that he may not be able to live up to.  So, the concept of "woman" is good for me, because, really, it's what I need right now.  Lesson applied from Dancing Guy a few months ago -- If I have sex with someone on a regular basis, I will start to care about him, or at least think about him more than is warranted by the situation.  I said that straight out to RFG, and he seems okay with it.  I'm glad to be getting to know each other.

At the same time, I'm freaking out.  There are external and internal reasons for that.  The more tangible reasons are the external ones.  RFG's red flags are my strong sense that he likes to fool around and is willing to lie about it.  It's also clear that he wants a regular woman in his life, but I'm not sure if that precludes anything else.  As I mentioned in my previous posting, he talks about going to "strip clubs" with "clients" on a regular basis.  He told me he had "friends" during his marriage who his then-wife didn't know about.  At present, I can push all of that to the back of my mind, but having red flags sitting in the back of my mind isn't a comfortable thing.  I don't feel like we're in a place yet where I would want to bring it up, and I don't think there's anything I can bring up.  Really, it is what it is, so that's something that's clearly keeping me from jumping in with both feet. And there's the idea that I chose someone unavailable because that's somehow more comfortable to me, either because I'm unavailable too or because my script since childhood has been to connect with unavailable people due to my parents' unavailability. (I know I said "unavailable" 3 times in the last sentence...I don't think it's inappropriate, because it's so damn important to this whole mischegoss.)

And this brings us to the internal reasons for my freak-out.  According to my counselor K, it all comes from how my parents excluded and in some sense neglected me.  It comes from being labeled in my family of origin as the inconveniently and overwhelmingly needy one.  According to K, all of this makes me feel like I'm unlovable on my own, and that I need to take responsibility for other people's feelings and lose myself in order to get them to love me.  My mom was somehow able to do that, in a very successful 1950s-type way, but it pisses me off just to think about it.  It seems manipulative and dishonest, and I'm not that good at it anyway (unlike my brother...but that's a whole other kettle of fish).  I'm conflicted by it all, as well as terrified by fears of being abandoned and rejected, which would only serve to confirm my underlying feels of unworthiness and lack of belonging.  That's it in a nutshell, folks.  K says that these emotional responses -- "Please don't leave me!  Please like me!  What can I do to make you like me?  It's my fault of you don't!" -- are deeply grooved in my brain, and that I'm chipping away at it like stone, trying to change my responses.  She says it's not an easy or quick process, and that I shouldn't be upset with myself for being a work in progress.  (She also thinks RFG has some real red flags, and although she doesn't say it, she probably thinks I'm well rid of him.)

So, where do things stand?

Well, here are some things I don't want to do with RFG -- 1) Pine away for his calls, texts, and e-mails.  2) Think about how to get him to like me and follow through by acting manipulatively in some way.  3) Second guess Obsess over things I've done or haven't done.  4) Worry that he doesn't like me.  5) Lack confidence and have that show.  6) Get reactive and freak out in front of him.  7)  Wonder obsessively about what will happen with us, if it will ever work, and why it probably can't/won't.  8)  Worry that he's going to break up with me.

Here are some things that I DO want to do with RFG -- 1)  Enjoy our time together in the now.  2) Be kind and caring, with no agenda.  3) Have my limits and feel okay with them.  4)  Own my story -- tell him (as I've done, to some extent) that sometimes I get anxious and a bit freaky, and that I have some self-esteem issues.  5) Realize that I'll be okay with him or without him.  6) That said, realize there's no protection from pain, and that it's impossible to live life the way I want to live it and avoid risk altogether.  7) Learn from our time together.  8) Realize that whatever will be will be (without the sappy music).  10) Believe that the universe will provide.  11) Keep doing salsa dancing, at times independently of him. 12) Realize that I'm strong and beautiful and I have value. 13)  Try to let go of expectations for how things will progress.
Okay, it was good to lay that out.  Stating a goal is the first step towards achieving it, right? My goal is to be appropriately healthy in relationships, so we'll see how that goes.  I'm blessed with many things, and I feel like I'm moving forward in an iterative way.

Happy MLK weekend!

Keep Calm and Talk About Guacamole (in which I chastize myself for fantasizing about being the Rosetta Stone)

I'm trying to figure out why I do what I do.  I'm referring to a specific area of my life -- salsa dancing.  On the one hand, it's fun and healthy to have found an activity that I like, one where I can build skills and be social.  On the other hand, it's a proxy for sex and -- let's face it -- emotional connection with a man.  And that's not so healthy.

It all started when I began going dancing with Dancing Guy, aka Casual Guy.  No, wait, back up.  It all started with Cuban Guy, aka Disappearing Guy.  I feel really foolish saying this, but since then I've been into Latin guys.  Why?  Well, when I look back on my dating history, I've dated guys from a zillion many different cultures. (This came out when I was dating Neighbor Boy, and I think he felt threatened by it.)  At times, I've become interested in their cultures, and that added to the experience. This happened with the Lebanese American guy I dated in college, the German guy I dated in grad school, and, of course, my marriage to a Croatian Serb.  And let's not forget the Big Chill experience I had in college with a Nuyorican guy who was part of my summer group house.  Oh yeah, and the Norwegian guy I had a very brief fling with in grad school, only to later partner up with him on a volunteer student journal. And I even like learning about other cultures outside the context of dating.  (Yes, that last sentence was meant to sound a little self-mocking.)

But while dating guys from other cultures can be enriching, it's also fraught with problems.  The Lebanese American guy I dated in college was basically American, so no problem there.  In general, however, there can be deep-seated misunderstandings and structural limitations.  I'm even wondering if dating people from other cultures is a reflection of my own emotional unavailability. There's a certain script that comes with dating someone from another culture.  You can teach and learn from each other, and there's always something to talk about.  With Latino guys, I thought I had hit the trifecta. There was, of course, the whole other culture thing, together with their familiarity with the US and its ways, and, there was, for me, attraction.  I was thrilled when my salsa dancing got good enough that Latin guys asked me to dance.  I thought -- although I never really articulated it to myself or anyone else -- that soon I would have a boyfriend, or at least a sexual encounter that would make me feel validated and enough.  And that's where my trouble began.

See, it really isn't happening.  Well, it could be happening, but not with the right people.  I took my wonderful Goddess Friend S to my main salsa dancing place, and after a few minutes -- it seemed -- she began making out with this cute but emotionally needy and somewhat messed up Argentinian guy.  I remember thinking -- and posting on Facebook -- "Sigh. Always the bridesmaid."  But the next time I went there, AG hit on me.  I was clear with him that I only wanted to be friends, or at least as clear as a clear-thinking woman thinks she can be when dealing with an emotionally needy man with Italian roots. We even went to a movie once, and may see one again.  He's fine to spend some time with, from time to time, as long as I don't feel pressured to be more than friends. But he's not going to fit my script from the previous paragraph. 

And then there's Red Flag Guy, who I met while dancing and then he followed up with a message from OK Cupid. We had a 98% compatibility rating on OKC, but then I realized that he had somehow misrepresented his name and location.  And when I first told him I had kids, he didn't immediately tell me he had kids.  And when I asked to see his driver's license, he said he "felt violated."  I still haven't seen it.  So, yes, red flags galore, but I let him take me out to a Peruvian restaurant with a great live band, dancing, and me being the only "American" there.  And then on the way home, he took me to 7-11 and bought me an ice cream.  So, the good time balanced out the red flags, and I agreed to go out with him again, despite my misgivings. But the second date was also a mixture of red flags and, "Hey, someone is interested in me." The new red flags could superficially be grouped under the R-word -- yes, the less appealing aspects of Republicanism (cigars, guns, sexism), along with some hints that he couldn't tell me some major things about his job either.  (Is DC the only city where people can say to you on dates, "I could tell you what I do, but then I'd have to kill you, ha ha ha?")  But I still let him kiss me in the car, and the question is, why why why?  Well, I'm lonely.  Well, I'm horny (I hate that word).  Well, for some f*cked-up reason, it feels validating to have a guy pursue me and want me physically.  It feels validating to have a physical connection, to have a guy take his mask off with me, to lose myself in the connection.  (And, mind you, this was just kissing.  It's not like I'm a slut or anything, okay?)  RFG wants to get together again, but I've been putting him off.

And it's not just those two guys.  Whenever I go dancing, I have this feeling, like I want to look sexy, I want to be pursued, I want to have a fling. It never happens, but the dancing can be sexy enough.  If "Dirty Dancing" had been set in today's world, it may well have focused on the bachata.  And there are guys at these places who will dance really close with you.  I was starting to enjoy that with certain guys, but now I realize that everyone watches everyone at these places, and that I should be careful.

So, here we have me -- needy, wanting validation, enjoying the whole dance thing but having my own emotional agenda. We also have some unavailable and/or inappropriate guys.  And then we have two guys I kind of like, and with one of them I had a datelet (i.e., something that may or may not have been a date) last night. And that's what's messing me up today.  At one of the places I go, one of my ongoing dance partners has been this Mexican economist who's probably a little bit older than I am.  Since I knew he had an avocado farm in Guatemala (I'm not making this up, although I thought he was at first), I began telling him how avocados were something I thought I should like, but I wasn't sure of the best way to eat them.  That led to him saying that he would bring in some avocados for me the next weekend, and that he would make some chocolate for me as well.  I wasn't sure what to make of that, but sure enough, last night he appeared with a bag full of something.  And then after dancing for a bit (not just with each other), he drove me to the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and we ate perfectly ripe avocado spread on Domino's pizza bread, along with an amazing concoction called "chocolate lava cakes" that he had made himself.  Again, I'm not making this up.  It was pretty unbelievable.  He was very reserved and proper the entire time, and he told me in a weird roundabout way about this Turkish woman he had dated.  And he also said that if women dance too close with men, the good dancers won't dance with them, and that only the guys who want to dance close will dance with them.  I wasn't sure if that was a warning for me?  It was also interesting how we left the club separately -- "I'll meet you outside in 10 minutes" -- but I appreciated his discretion.  At the end of the evening, as he drove me back to my car at 2 am, he shook my hand and asked if I would be at the club next Saturday.  I ended up giving him a kiss on the cheek.  And as I drove home, fell into bed, and woke up late today, I've kicking myself.  Did it go okay?  What was all that about?  Should I have been more forward in the sense of getting his phone number so I could text a thanks?  Did I put him off?  DO I dance too close with guys?  What on earth is up?  And it all dovetails with my need to connect, my use of dancing as a proxy for sex, and my unrealistic fantasizing about that happening with him and the other guy I haven't mentioned.  It's so so so in my head, and now that I've had a date "?" with one of them, I'm kind of freaking out.

And now it's Christmas Eve, several days later.  I've consulted with my counselor and with friends, as well as reading more of Natalie Lue of Baggage Reclaim fame's Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl.  And what have I learned?  Well, for one thing, it's okay to be a work in progress, as I clearly am, as we all are. My Goddess Friend S compared it to how she wanted to do a handstand in yoga for the longest time, and the teacher kept telling her she wasn't strong enough and made her do practice positions for the foreseeable future.  I feel like I'm so ready for a relationship, but am I really?  Goddess Friend S made the point that now is our practice time, and we'll make mistakes as we try our best.  We'll learn from those mistakes.  It's our time to be flailing around in the dating pool.  Mark and Angel Hack write, "Choose to look ahead instead of behind you. Do your best. Forget the rest. Your past mistakes are meant to guide you, not define you." And there's also the wisdom of realizing that everything happens in time, as it's meant to happen, and that it can be important to let go.  So, as I think about Mexican Avocado Guy, I have to think like, "Well, wouldn't it be nice if we became friends?  If he wants to explore more, that would be good, but if he just wants to be friends, that's okay too."  I mean, if that's the worst that could happen, I can handle that.  I have before, right?  I'm cool.  I guess what was freaking me out was that somehow my behavior had or could put him off, or that I wasn't communicating my feelings effectively.  My awesome counselor said I had done just the right thing, and gave me some advice about when I see him again (stay calm, talk about guacamole, and let him make the next move).

So....part of the issue was that some guy was actually nice and decent to me, and it freaked me out.  I had all of these sexual fantasies in my head, and it was all about something happening with some guy that would enable me to escape from myself and be validated at the same time.  All in my head, but I think the datelet shocked me into reality.  Yes, people can go out and have expectations of good, decent behavior.  Yes, people can make informed, rational choices about dating.  I'd like to get to know MAG better, but it's also possible I may decide that he's not someone I would like to date.  Who knows...  The important thing, I think, is to be out there, either in the dating pool or else just out there.  I don't have to dance close to someone to forward my dating agenda, as it were.  I can act respectful towards others and myself and get to know people and see what happens.  And I can be lonely while I'm doing it.  I do believe that the universe provides what's needed, at the appropriate time.  Inshallah.

And as for my intercultural -- currently Latin -- proclivity?  Well, as I try to put together my elevator list of what I'm looking for in a man/relationship, surely one item on it should be someone who has experienced different cultures.  As I was growing up, my family spent time with my father's colleagues, who were scientists from all over the world.  I lived in Geneva, and later visited and studied in other places. There always seems to be some kind of multicultural connection, and maybe that's why I like going salsa dancing so much. The crowds at these places range from plurality Latino to resembling a mini-UN. One of the other items on my list is education, and this being the DC area, that's not too hard to find.

So...although I was freaked out, and I'm still a little anxious, I feel like I have a deeper, ever so slightly wiser perspective now.  I realize I've been in my head too much, addicted to my thoughts of obliteration and rescue. I need to take a breath, consider the known knowns, and have faith that this is where I'm supposed to be. Como dice Edith Piaf, Aujourd'hui, ca commence avec moi.

Fuckwit Redux

 
Now, the guy I mentioned in my last posting was not Cuban Guy (CG, aka Disappearing Guy, aka Fuckwit). Pardon me for referring to him that way...I've continued to think of him as the one who got away, as the one quality guy I've met, and as someone I could continue to hold in high esteem.

Well, maybe there's a reason that I don't trust my own judgement.

Here's how it developed:  I wrote earlier about someone I was dating post-CG, who I called Dancing Guy. It was casual with him, and while I wasn't crazy about that, I decided to go along with it and see how I felt. I figured it would be fun, that I needed a palate cleanser -- my friend Charlotte's words, not mine -- and that...well, just what the hell... And it was fun. We went out dancing, the chemistry was there and fun, he was confident and actually smart. The word "actually" may be a wee bit elitist...He didn't come across at first in his writing as someone beyond average, possibly because he was writing in his second language. But he continued to exceed expectations, keep my interest, impress me with his way of thinking about things, etc. And I learned a lot about various things. So, in that sense it was good.

However, the bad part was that I was certainly thinking about him more than he was thinking about me, and I became more and more bothered by the fact that we were barely communicating at all outside of planning the logistics for our weekly get-together. I mentioned this to him, with no reply. But I also said directly that he needed to tell me if I was the other woman. I could make it be okay in my head if he were dating other people (although it wasn't okay, really), but not if he were dating anyone seriously or even regularly. He assured me that he wasn't, and that I should also tell him if that became the case with me. But then the following Tuesday, he e-mailed me and said he felt like he was keeping me from the relationship I deserved. He also said that there was someone he was seeing on a regular basis. He had told me about her before, but I thought it was over except for the occasional booty call. When we got together that night and talked about it, it turned out that they had never really broken up. And I told him that no matter how I twisted it around in my head, I couldn't make it work out with us. I tried to do a Rain Man in my head -- stay with brother in LA and go back to institution in Ohio -- two things that cannot be done simultaneously, no matter how much my brain wanted them to be so. But there was NO way I could make it work for me.

So, that was that. We had smokin' break-up sex and parted. I'm glad I had the strength to speak up and eventually break up with him, and I'm glad he had the strength to be honest with me. My impression of him as a playa was correct, but at least he was an honest one, in the end. I'm thinking about him in my head, but I realize that there's just a wall there. There's NO WAY it could work unless he changes his behavior and current goals, and I put that at about a 1-2% probability, closer to 1%.

So, as usual, the universe blessed me with girlfriends to get through this. My wonderful friend Liz told it like it was. My friend Leah, who introduced me to baggage reclaim, said I should read one of Natalie's books called Mr. Unavailable and the Fallback Girl. I'm in the midst of doing so, and I found gems such as this:

"Are you only in contact around the times you're getting together?" and "He may be putting in about as much effort as it would take to order a takeaway a few times a week or however often he keeps in touch." My mind went, DING DING DING...clearly that's how it was with Dancing Guy.

And here's the ultimate gem, with regard to CG/Disappearing Guy/Fuckwit: "Disappearing is hugely disrespectful and a rejection of the relationship. If he disappears, don't let him back into your life."

So I began thinking, my God, Fuckwit (who I actually felt bad about calling that name) really was a fuckwit. What the hell...he disrespected both me and the relationship. Which only confirmed once again that I can be like a kicked dog in some ways, and it's a good thing Dancing Guy laid things out for me the way he did or I might still be begging for his crumbs. But I started thinking more about CG/Fuckwit, and about how it really was inexcusable, what he did to me. When I texted him that the ring I left in his apartment -- on the fucking credenza, for Christ's sake, and I never even knew what a fucking credenza was -- had sentimental value, he still didn't return it to me. (Granted, it didn't really have sentimental value, except maybe as a symbol that I can buy myself jewelry and don't need some guy to do it for me.) But I started feeling like he may indeed have been a bit of a shit. And I continued to be haunted by the ghost of his shiny black Volvo SUV, only less so. Just last weekend, I saw the right kind of Volvo parked illegally outside of Whole Foods in his old neighborhood, and I had to wait there, while my frozen WF brand taquitos got soft, until I saw an Asian woman carrying fresh flowers get into the SUV and drive away. I mean, fuck... (Pardon my French...I'm really on a roll tonight.)

But tonight, after responding to a potential date on OKC, I decided to page down down down on my messages page to see something about Fuckwit. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but what I found was a new photo and a new location -- Sunnyvale, CA. Heart pounding, I attempted to google him there with no luck. So I created a new profile located in Stanford -- username Hellacat -- and found that he basically had the same profile as before. I did more googling with no luck, except to learn that Sunnyvale is home to Yahoo and not far from google's Mountainview either. So, I stealthily visited CG/Fuckwit's profile, and with some selective question answering found out that he's looking to be married in the next 3 years and he's looking for someone to have kids with. (I'm tres tres resourceful, n'est-ce pas?)

This led me to conclude that CG and I really were on different pages when we met. I was barreling full-speed ahead into painful recent-divorce learning, and he was trying to settle down, albeit being sidelined by his shit at work. And he really had an asshole side to him, as evidenced by his treatment of his ex and his bragging about himself as a jerk in business. So... All I can say is that there was no way that we as a couple could fit into the space that the universe had for us at the time. (Italicized because, wow, this is indeed an awesome revelation!)

I've already listed here what I got out of my relationship with CG, including Pitbull, dressing and looking hotter (IMHO), Dalmatian fig spread from Whole Foods, and....well, I'm running out items, which makes me realize it was thankfully a while ago. And just today I went to Whole Foods today and asked about the Dalmatian fig spread. They didn't have any, but I saw that they did have some from Provence. So, perhaps this is a "If you try sometimes, you get what you need" kind of symbolism. Not that I bought it (too dear, my dear), but either spread would have met my needs. This particular Whole Foods simply doesn't carry that kind of fig spread anymore, so it's just not available there, or perhaps anywhere. But the spread from Provence might just be promising...

So where am I now? I'm feeling a bit discombobulated at times, but it's more because of the ghosts in my head than the presence of any corporeal guy, either in my life or virtually. I'm enjoying dancing and taking the courageous step of taking myself out and having fun at salsa and swing places. I'm doggedly responding to appropriate people on OKC who contact me, and have even contacted a couple myself.

It's fine...I feel like I'm in a better place. If the ghosts flit through my head too much, if my imagination remembers these two guys more than it should...well, I know that it will fade. Seeing that Sunnyvale thing will certainly help with that. It was what it was, we learned, and all that. CG did say to me at one point that at some point we would both come to understand the reasons for what happened between us, even though it didn't work out. All I can come up with so far are the painful lessons I learned, along with my list of items above. I'm feeling kind of sad, and kind of hurt and foolish that I would keep him in my mind for so long. But I was very vulnerable at the time, and he made an impression. I will move on, and other guys will get through again. That's how it works, with the help of time and processing. In that light, my time with Dancing Guy was a good thing, because he did get through and the ending with him was so clear. You see, the universe does have its plans and its reasons.

And I'm feeling a bit like Tina Turner, in that I've been feeling protective of myself, perhaps for the first time. Honestly, what's love got to do with it? My wonderful friend Suzanne says that when she has memories of being together with the guy she just broke up with, she doesn't try to block them, but instead imagines what it would be like with someone who is healthy and wants a committed relationship. So, as I make my way along this rocky path, I do feel like I'm making some progress. I'm seeing more bullshit for what it is and I'm following my joy. I'm trying to remain open, but I realize I need to be patient with myself and treat myself with attention, respect, and care (as Dancing Guy promised to do on our dates, but it just wasn't enough for me). I feel blessed that I can write about this and move forward. High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris!

In which I apologize to an ex, indirectly

Okay, I just got a blistering fb message from someone I dated who I had described in an unflattering manner on this blog. In response, I'm going to tone down my description of this person. But that doesn't edit out the fact that I was a total asshole for describing him in that way, even if I was pissed. There are two lessons I take from this. The first, of course, is not to make this blog public. I mean, duh. The second is to get my head out of my ass and have a little compassion. I mean, really. I'm a strong person. In the words of someone I knew in Croatia, we all have our bullshit. There's no need to use it as an excuse to treat others badly. That's what bullies do. I can be strong enough not to be mean. Otherwise, what I'm doing is bullshit. So...it's clear what I need to do. Live your values and all that. Jeez, it should be obvious, right? Barbara Kingsolver says all we need to focus on to do right is to say, "Let me be a good animal today." Well, please let me strive to be a good animal, as much as I have the strength to do so. Amen.

Bitch and moan

I'm so so pissed off. I feel guilty even expressing this, because I have a good life, live in a peaceful country, am blessed with my kids and my job, etc. What gives me the right to bitch and moan and complain? But I'm SO pissed off. Part of it is the guys I've been dating, and part of that anger is aimed at myself. I feel like I've been undervaluing myself, and in doing that I've been enabling others to undervalue me as well. I don't know.

My wonderful therapist Kathy says I simply haven't met quality guys (except CG...for some reason she thinks he was a quality guy messed up by a work situation). But here's the thing. I feel totally alone and unsupported by my family. Okay, so my brother and I are no longer not talking, but he's not there for me. (I'm forever grateful for my cousin and his wife, who've stepped in to fill what could have been my brother's role in some legal paperwork, as well as for other things they've done.) And while my mother is there for me in some ways, deep down I sometimes -- often? -- think she's really all about lining things up for herself. To be even less charitable, I would say she's all about manipulating people so they like her and support her. I know we all do that, but I swear to God that I've had a deep feeling since I was small that she wasn't really there for me.

When I was around 7, I had a dream that I can still clearly recall, in which I was being chased through our childhood home by an evil supervillain named Scorpio. I ran through the kitchen, and there was my mother, sitting at our red 1970s-era formica table with a huge pile of shredded cabbage in front of her. Scorpio said to her, "Do what I say and you won't get hurt," so she just sat there, not coming to my aid. And I ran on, into my parents' bedroom with Scorpio chasing and eventually catching me. Childhood can be cruel. (This seems like a jump from the last paragraph, but it's not...at the end of the dream, when Scorpio had caught me, we ended up sitting in my parents' closet with other kids, and it was scary.) I'm trying to protect my kids from it as much as I can. I felt powerless and was victimized by my peers over time.

I have a memory of hanging out with the neighborhood kids in an informal playgroup, and the whole group voting on who liked whom. When it came time to vote for me, barely anyone raised their hands, and someone said to me, "You didn't even vote for yourself. You mean you don't like yourself?" Whatever this was, it started early early in childhood, even before elementary school, I think. I have memories from 3-year old nursery school of feeling out of place and like I didn't belong, because I had a short haircut and people thought I was a boy. I feel like I grew up without appropriate sympathy or support. I'm sorry if this sounds selfish or self-centered...the result is SO clear to me, though, as I've struggled my ENTIRE life with self-esteem issues. If I let myself think too much (which happens a lot), I end up having a knee-jerk reaction of why do I deserve something, who am I to want something, who am I to feel what I'm feeling? It's a default learned reaction, and it helps to have other people to bounce it off to help me feel stronger in terms of what I'm feeling and doing.

Natalie of Baggage Reclaim says, "Stop seeking the Brady Bunch fantasy or expecting parents to step up in adulthood. Many of us are seeking an ideal with our families that just isn’t realistic and we can end up feeling unnecessary shame as if family members being flawed and even inadequately parenting us, is some cross we have to bear for the rest of our days. If 35 has taught me anything, it’s that many of the issues that run in families are bigger than ‘us’ and we only see this when we lose the rose tinted glasses and recognise that ‘younger self’ within us that still wants approval and the fantasy."

So, here I am, with my mother recovering from a spinal fracture, me at home fighting a virus and feeling undervalued over time by various and sundry dates, my Seattle family grieving because my cousins' step-mom just died, and me feeling upset, and then guilty that I'm feeling upset. I want to be able to step up and say, "This isn't right. I need more. It's not enough." And I feel totally guilty saying that, like I'm too needy. The key, I think, is to have your own back and to trust that you have it. Also, it's to live according to your own values. And to keep moving and have faith. I'm not going to come to any epiphany in this posting, at least not tonight. I'm doing okay, I'm doing all the right stuff. I'm a good mom, and I'm enjoying my kids. I'm a good person. But I still feel like I'm not getting enough, and I'm upset about it. I'll sit with that for a while, in a healthy way, and see what develops. Laku noc.

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.