What Time Reveals

Everyone knows I am an extremely busy person, perceivably by choice.  I work many jobs, which currently can add up to over 70 hours of work in a week.  My free time is rare and it is precious, but I am quite capable of fitting it time for fun.  Sometimes I believe I appreciate my personal time more due to its scarcity.

My mother always told me, "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it."  This has proved very true, and I have often been that very individual that people would ask to even more.  A busy schedule fosters time management skills.  As for me, I know how to rearrange, renegotiate, reschedule or rethink plans so that all is still accomplished in a timely fashion.  It becomes a conceptual puzzle, a game for those who dare see it that way.  I enjoy the challenge.

Passion drives how I spend my time.  I work a lot so I make enough money for the other things I want in life.  I will also forsake many things, including sleep, in order to spend time at an event or with a friend or date.  Even when I am exhausted, I can draw on my passion to sustain me through something for which I want to be best.  There is time to crash afterwards.  I feed my relationships with passion and give time and energy freely where deserved.

Tardiness can even be planned for, but the busy person only offers a small allowance for lateness. I had to learn how to accept someone being late for a meeting because people kept doing it!  Accepting this fact took time, but now I build it into my schedule.  So now, I postpone my annoyance until a courteous amount of time has passed, and then I give myself permission to get anxious or annoyed.  There is almost always something I can get done in the time I am waiting for them.  I can only control my own actions, but continue to wish people showed respect to each other with punctuality more often.  How I wish that I could demand a doctor's note before I would excuse a late date!

No one wants to be waiting by the phone, or sitting alone at the restaurant, hoping their friend or partner really cares to show up for the relationship.  I am not a beggar for anyone's time.  If I care about you, I will call, I will email, I will show up for you and be all yours for a time.  Too often, my friends or my dates have made some plan with me that ends up discarded for something they forgot they had to do or for something "better."  I am not going to accept anyone who does not respect my time and keeps me as a low priority.  I will always prefer going out on my own to associating with people who cannot be counted on.  I deserve a man or a friend who goes out of their way to make time for me.

Thank you to all of you who already give time to those you care about...and for the rest of you, be warned that how you spend your time reveals your priorities.  If I am not your priority, then there is no way you will be mine.  Let's not waste each other's time.  Give the gift of time or honesty; walk away if you cannot honor your time commitments.

Earning The Black-and-Blue Heart Medal

More often than not, dating ends with something other than lasting love.  Dating is a dangerous activity, that can lead to many bruised hearts and egos.  I have gained some of my most salient dating lessons through messing up a relationship and have also enjoyed a vast array of experiences through intimacy with many people.  Many others have already navigated through the dating battlefield to find a life partner or just peace with their singledom.  I have lots of great stories and some valuable experience, but I remain in the trenches, expecting to incur many more wounds, until I am thoroughly weathered by love.

There is definitely something idealistic about marrying your first love.  Dating is a bitch; who wouldn't want to skip out on all that pain?  When you first find love and commit to it fast, you get so many rewards right upfront: growing together through all of life's stages, having an ever-present helping hand when you face a road block, enhancing experiences through simple companionship.  Making the choice to marry someone without "shopping around" saves many from falling victim on the battleground.  Comparably, arranged marriages achieve partnerships independent of the outcome of dating.  The pressure is off to perfect one's mad skills such as the "yawn-move" or the "oops-I dropped-something move."
[note: I do know not all marriages that either started young or were arranged end up lasting, but that also goes for other kinds of marriages, so...]

Not only is it getting harder to be psyched by dating, but acting "properly" on a date gets really old.  None of the behaviors seem natural or real.  Of course I want to make a good impression, but I want the guy in question to fall in love with me, not some imaginary girl.  How I must exasperate my friends who offer advice that I routinely disregard!  Since I have dated in very unconventional ways since I began, I have likely picked up more bad habits than good dates.  In some ways, high school must serve as a dating boot camp: the hormonally-driven competition inspiring people to be what the opposite sex seemingly wants.  It is all about embodying generalizations and manipulating impressions.  Somehow I tested out of boot camp, but missed the experience of being broken down and built back up in the image of what is expected of me.

Will I ever know how to date well?  Do I even want to get good at it?  I want to form a partnership, not just be a serial-dater.   Sometimes, my dating record brings me pain to recall, but I am still here, hoping.  I think we have to look at lost-love differently.  I refuse to wallow in self-pity that I do not have a husband, fiance or even a boyfriend right now.  I am hereby awarding myself The Black-And-Blue Heart Medal for being brave enough to continually putting my heart at risk, even after receiving multiple injuries on the battlegrounds of love.

Rigged Russian Roulette and the Benefits of Bluffing

I typically follow Joseph Campbell's advice to follow my bliss, finding the choice easy when it is between something that excites me and something that bores me.  But sometimes there is no happy choice...you can either have a rock or a hard place.  To illustrate this unfortunate position, I once drew a picture of an individual on an island that was only big enough to stand on, with deep ocean all around her.  Any direction she could go would be just as hard to swim, and staying there would surely end with starvation.  One could heed the advice "if you are lost, stay in one place" but then one must believe someone else knows one is lost and has set out to search.  The contending choice is to take one's fate into one's own hands by setting off into the unknown sea with nothing but the satisfaction of self-determined action.  It feels like a game of Russian Roulette in which all cylinders have a lethal bullet, a cruel surefire suicide.

In no ways is my life at that grim of a crossroads, but recently I had to make a choice between two equally distasteful options.  Since this blog is about dating, it is of course about a man.  I have reached a point in my life where I know I want to be in a committed relationship that is clearly headed towards marriage and children.  I am, as I have said before, ready for love; ready to share my life with someone.  Recently, I gave my emotions free reign to develop for another person, gambling that our mutual attraction meant we were about to begin a relationship of this kind.  I went "all in" knowing a win would be worth a lot, even temporary bankruptcy.  My gamble did not pay off, perhaps my "opponent" had been only bluffing about his potentially winning hand up till now, believing me to have been doing the same, just to build up the pot.  However, I bet on a truly winning hand, one the may be truly too good to be believable.  Perhaps, I have failed to realize how to protect a strong hand and win more by bluffing, just as one can potentially win big on bluffed nothing.  I knew I was no good at poker.

But Russian Roulette is not my game either.  Somehow I have ended up playing the emotional version where you get hurt no matter what.  This game is rigged.  The unsuccess of my potential relationship has left me with no happy option for the present.  My feelings have gone the place of no return in what I want from this man, and now rebuffed by him, they lay slack and swollen.  A friendship in place of a romance would unavoidably trample all over these dejected feelers of my heart, leaving me no room to heal.  However, severing contact with this man, who has been a beautiful friend longer than a potential lover, feels like shooting myself in the foot...handicapping myself in just some other way.  I don't want to choose!  Why must he make it more difficult by wanting to be friends with me and doubting my feelings could be as strong as I have said?!  My love is so rich because I want to have a relationship that explores the extreme reaches of love...I want to embark on this ultimate adventure, but must thoroughly vet my fellow journeyman first.

I made the choice to shoot myself in the foot, knowing that healing from two injuries is better than getting continually reinjured in the same place.  It is hard to consciously hurt yourself and another person, even when you know it is in order to heal more completely.  It broke my heart to say goodbye, but I am proud that I was adamant to the last...and with a smile still on my face.  I loved myself more...I made this decision for me and now I can recoup, refocus, and reenter the unruly game of love.

Beginning to End With Feeling

(The soundtrack for this entry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxkMlS2nuU8)

The feeling of starting a new relationship is intoxicating.  The possibilities of shared experience with someone lift me up and energize me in all my activities.  I walk down the street with an extra spring in my step, I smile at more people for no reason, and everyday tasks feel more full of meaning.  As the relationship grows the feeling evolves into something else, something more beautiful.  I feel like a flower blooming, opening up, stretching my petals out, reveling in the sun and showering the world with my perfume.  Love pours out of me for the old man in the wheelchair at the bus stop, for the young tattooed couple at the other table at the coffee shop, and for whatever man who has tapped into my deep well of feeling.

Love comes easily to me, but it comes in a flood.  I love before I fall in love, but my love always seems to knock people down and wash them away.  No one has ever been able to teach me how to feel less strongly, less intensely.  My feelings are so large, unwieldy. When I am angry, I am a ball of fire that I struggle to extinguish before it flies around the room.  When I am sad, I am a thunderstorm that threatens to drown me in the downpour, and when I am in love, I am all giving, all present, all invested.  I know how that sounds...you are probably itching to counsel me to not let myself be consumed by a relationship, to be more prudent and careful.  I have heard it all, and I have learned that I these huge feelings do not swallow me, they expand me: I do not get lost, but I do not know if you will believe me.

I have been lost in love, blind to my own needs, but now I know I am myself when I feel strongly, honestly, and I am true to myself more than you know.  Also, I do not expect to be fulfilled by another being any more, as I have realized that I have to love a person who is whole, complete and separate from me.  I love myself, my potential for love, the choices I have made.  I want to love someone who I have no illusion about.  Knights on white horses, please stay away from me, move on to a weaker female who needs to be rescued.  But if there is a man out there who is not afraid of such a passionate life-partner, just find the eye of the hurricane.  Here amidst my powerful chaos, I am at peace.

When another man gets laid flat by my torrents, you will see me grieve, hard...of course.  I feel cut down at the knees.  I have to shrink back to normal size, condensing my potential into its cramped container.  I feel like the genie in the bottle, once more waiting to be freed.  I can not grant wishes, however, but I can wish one furtive wish for myself; I wish with my entire heart that I am lucky enough to live life large again.  I am not afraid to do feel the bumps on the road of Life.  My arms are wide open for the range of experiences that are possible.  Love is my spiritual quest, and I love Life in all its flavors...I believe in Good, and I will live Good throughout all pain.

Thank you, Life, for love, for passion, and yes, even for this pain.

Meet Play Shove!

I fully admit I let myself get caught up in the Eat Pray Love phenomenon, but I did not read the book. I will eventually, but I do not need it yet. I am, however, listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Committed, on CD...it was at the library especially for me the day after I saw her speak in Burnsville. I cannot say what other women found in Eat Pray Love that resonated with their personal journeys towards love, but I can attempt to speak about the chords it struck in me.

Being single while wanting a partnership I have never experienced personally is very different from being single after experiencing a marriage that did not work. Elizabeth Gilbert and I are living our own roller-coaster rides, as everyone must, but a good memoir jumps the tracks and sidles up to a wider population than lived its story. Seeking for answers, understanding, and even love belongs to everyone.

My search for love feels like a compulsion. Part of me would be glad to be rid of this desire for that feeling of connection, harmony and passion. I am not at all surprised that there are similarities between infatuation and drug addiction at the neurological level; love is a blissful high! Am I slave to my desire? Drawn on like an addict to her drug? Perhaps this is why monks and other spiritual people attempt to overcome desire...to rise above our human programming. Unfortunately, this is not an appealing approach to me, devoted as I am to fully immersing myself in the human experience. I have to accept my longing to be partnered.

Making the decision to accept is far easier than doing so when finding a partner proves to be so difficult. I loathe the advice from married men and women who are happily or just contently partnered already about how I should go about finding someone. I have never liked preachers. And anyway, who believes that their love story is so prototypical: the test case for everyone to follow? Their unconscious arrogance is as amazing as their {selective memories}.

[A brief message to all my would-be advice givers: Thank you for your love and concern about my happiness. I truly know you mean only good in offering me your wisdom, but if I want it I will ask you, directly. With me, you know when I want something from you, but a blog about my murky love future is not in itself a plea for aid. Instead of telling me where I should go, you are more than welcome to compliment me on the steps I have already taken, the obstacles I have overcome or the lessons I have learned the hard way.]

I know I have not fully wrestled the demons that guard the path to my grown-up love, but I am content with this awareness. Through all of my relationships, and my many almost-relationships, I have changed and learned enough to know that I am not a mess. Self-improvement, such as this, makes me so excited that I want to impart my fresh wisdom to the world! However, no one can teach another through words what must be learned through experience. We all do not live and love in the same way, nor should we want to.

As for me, I would not change a thing about my love journey. I have tried many kinds of love on for size and would not have wanted to miss any one. For those people who are happy to marry their first love, my lessons may act as a small pickaxe weakening the walls of a once-sturdy structure should I choose to espouse what specifically I have learned. I have no desire to crack anyone's happiness, but am shamelessly comfortable with the knowledge that my heartbreaks will make me a stronger and better lover than I could ever have been had I only had one man I loved. So I raise my glass, in a solitary toast, to meeting, playing with and, if need be, shoving away men as I wind my way along this path.

A Spy in the Women's Locker Room

Sometimes, I feel like a spy when I enter the women's locker room at the gym. My mission is to look at all the women in every stage of undressing and record with my mental video camera. The two flaws in this fantasy, is that I have no idea why I need to do this mission (but it could be classified) and I have nobody to whom I should report back. So what am I doing?!

Men may think they are unique in checking out “the competition” when they are in the locker room, gym, or bathroom, but I do the same. I cannot speak for all women, but I find other women's bodies fascinating and of course beautiful. As I undress without modesty myself, I find my eyes roaming around constantly. It is as if I have special permission in this place to shamelessly look at women. I would gladly welcome co-ed locker rooms, where we all can ogle each other without censorship! My motive for looking at other women alludes me, but I can say that I do not believe I have competition in mind -envy, perhaps.

There are some things I love about myself and my body, but like everyone, there are things I wish were different sometimes! (The idea of bigger boobs is probably better than the reality, but I reserve the right to drool over big boobs sometimes, god damn it!) But who would not find the many differences in body type so interesting? There are very few places where one can see so much variety with so few clothes obstructing the view. You can often tell what area of a person's body they are concerned with, but I find it interesting how having some weight in choice locations actually suits people better than if they had less. But, if you thought about it, nice boobs are all about attractive fat.

I am reading Sex at Dawn: The prehistoric origins of modern sexuality (Dan Savage had nothing to do with my reading it), and the authors neatly deconstruct the beauty of boobs and buttocks by comparing them. So perhaps there is no such thing as a true boob-man or ass-man...in effect they are the same. I guess that means I can be happy with my nice ass and my un-sagging breasts! I am also lucky that, unlike primates, I can vocally state that I am available to the opposite sex.

The one hint that may indicate I am indeed competitive is that I prefer to be in better shape than the other women around me at the gym. I do not feel this way in life, but at the gym, I like wearing tight pants without being called for a fashion foul because I look good! I cease to be so unique with other fit and attractive women around me (especially if they have better tits). I do not feel guilty about this feeling, because I cannot be the only one who feels this way. I do think it is funny that I do not care about who wears a better dress to a party, but I do care who wears their spandex better!

Am I vain to think this way? The main definitions of 'vain' contain the words 'conceited' and 'futile' implying a false pride that serves no purpose. I am proud of myself and my body; I want to be health, fit, attractive and comfortable. I just like to improve things, even if they are already good (otherwise I grow bored). So working out, building strength, toning muscles are all activities I am doing to make myself better. If I am not proud of my accomplishments will I continue to go to the gym?

How can we bitch about what society is “telling” us we have to look like, when we ultimately do it for ourselves? Seeing a skinny model on TV or in a magazine is just that...seeing a picture. If you take it on yourself to look like her, well go ahead, if you can, but what makes her a better role model for you, than your mother, your sister or your friend? Women's libbers feel free to yell at me, but I refuse to accept women are passive receptors to society's messages on beauty! We make the decisions in our life about what we eat, how we exercise, and how much we spend watching the tube and reading those magazines. In the real world there are plenty of examples of different forms of beauty, but for some reason we do not care about them.

Next time you are at the gym or out for a walk, try to see that every body has its own beauty, but remember also, that healthy (physically and mentally) is the most attractive look!

Pets and Ice Cream

For some reason, I find that I cannot just think of men as men, each one different in his own unique way. I am compelled to compare men to something else, ascribing metaphors to explain my attraction or my indifference. One explanation for why I might do this could be that men are such complicated creatures and I have no idea what I want or need in a partner because of this.

During the times when I am seeing more than one guy, I compare them against each other. This is easier and normally more fair than comparing them to ex-boyfriends because both men are present. Of course, it is hard not to remember what felt good in the past and also what caused the end of a relationship. Comparison is inevitable, so I make no apologies for it, but if you think about it, it ends up being useful for all parties. I have all too often continued to see a man I really was not interested in when I was without two choices. I am able to truly commune with my feelings about each man when I have a choice, so I can treat the men better and avoid dating out of desperation.

Whenever a girlfriend asks me to talk about my choices, weighing pros and cons, as we distill where my attraction is leading me, it is hard for me to find any words. But gut feelings are not always clear either. Often times my body is attracted to one man more than another while my domestic desire points straight to the other. There is no stranger battle than when two parts of yourself turn on each other, leaving to you only watch.

Sometimes, a perfect metaphor settles on to my two suitors, offering me a way to explain the feelings I have towards them. Of course, it is a simplification, but it becomes a tool that can bring peace to my internal landscape. Metaphors are often the only way I can bridge my rational mind and my emotional being, they become a language both sides have in common in their otherwise deadlocked language barrier.

Two men came into my life on the same weekend recently, and the perfect metaphor on their heels. Both men were of a same age, homeowners, content in their jobs, and manly enough in physique to interest me. One began with instant attraction and sexual tension while the other started off with companionable activity and ready laughter.

Mr. Sexy and Mr. Smiley became a puzzle after day one, pulling me in opposite directions. Mr. Sexy seemed unavailable while he stayed in contact and Mr. Smiley seemed too ready to do something for me. How frustrating! I was not happy with either response. Then the metaphor hit me; Mr. Sexy was a cat and Mr. Smiley was a dog! How ironic that they each owned the pet they resembled.

A cat-man is very independent and aloof. You can always tell he likes his space and things to go his way. He is most likely the man that sleeps with a girl and expects her to go home right after, without sleeping over. He is also the man who sends mixed signals, sometimes being very affectionate and then sometimes lashing out unexpectedly. Mr. Sexy did not do all of these things to me of course, but cat-men are too choosy about when they want attention and do not come when called, even with bait!

A dog-man is very social and loyal. You can tell that he likes you because he wants to be with you a lot and is very affectionate. He is the man who brings flowers, or makes you dinner, and always asks for another date before you can wonder if he will. He is the nice guy your mother wants you to marry, who seems stable and sweet. I remember thinking how easy it would be to fall into Mr. Smiley's life when he made me dinner and just be a nice girlfriend again. But soon after, Mr. Smiley became too smothering with his affection and I realized I am not ready for that lifestyle.

So if I clearly do not want a cat-man OR a dog-man boyfriend, what do I actually want? Is there an animal that mimics the kind of love I want to nurture? Perhaps a penguin...devoted mates that share the parenting duties so well? No, there is something too tragic about the penguin. A deer...an independent female being fought over by many bucks? No, there is no romance to that love, nor to time alone after mating. I think I will eventually conclude that I want a human man, but I guess I am waiting for one who knows how to love me as the complicated human woman that I am.

So, I remain single, but joyfully so. Many of my girlfriends are partnered, engaged or married and do not envy me my singledom, but I am having too much fun meeting new people and tasting the many flavors of affection that I couldn't be less interested in getting into a relationship right now. Since Mr. Sexy and Mr. Smiley (both who remain in my life for now, as friends) I have met three new men who attract me, had two lesbians hit on me, and made some awesome new friends dancing salsa and riding public transportation in our underwear! Every person offers me a new sensation never yet felt. I feel as if I am developing a sixth sense for social interaction and I want to try as much as possible. Just like ice cream, there are so many flavors...and there is no way to have a favorite.