From the reaction to my last writing, it seems that the proverbial nerve has been stricken. Watching my sex kitten friends go in and out of relationships while I struggle with my own has been interesting and educational. Over the past year I have ventured into the dating extremes, from a crazy manipulator who had total disregard for anyone around her ( the "I AM # 1" tattoo on her right buttock and should have been a hint, I just thought she cheered in college) to someone I thought had finally accepted me for who I was as a person but ended up just needing a long distance phone partner to help her fall asleep when she was lonely(As my best friend told me, "don't ever call me with the she really likes me for me and not what I do line ever again", which I have avoided since). What I finally began to realize is that these relationships were steps backward and were my feeble attempts to venture into familiar territory.
Meet woman, woman needs help, I help, woman happy, live happily ever after, has been my dating mantra for years. Up and down. Ladies, you have at least once played the damsel in distress card. But my being a sucker for this line was more a reflection on my own faults more than anyone else. In my mind, I was meeting a strong woman who had gone through hell and were ready for that new strong man. I was Bogie, ready to hand over those letters of transit to Victor and Ilsa, and save the free world. But in retrospect, these were people who played the victim more than the strong heroine, either by choice or circumstance. But all these relationships were draining and sucked the life out of me.
That has been my challenge of late. To avoid the pitfalls of the the past, you have to accept the fact that a good part of your adult life has been spent lying next to people who did not really care for you and that you placed yourself in this love quandary. Only once in the recent past have I went to sleep with my arms around someone who for one fleeting moment looked at me with some sort of emotion. Of course, this has also been short lived since her reality is the same as everyone else I met. The one difference between her and others in my past is her vocalization that her instability threatens mine. One could take this as a nice way to blow off someone, but she gets the benefit of the doubt. This only endeared her more to me, but inablity to follow up on the simplest of promises has begun to harden my heart, which I believe is her goal.
As we all go through our struggles with life: debt, kids, more debt, ex's bullshit, more debt, we have this added societal pressure that being alone is an aberration. Even the commercials now tout the wonder drugs that can aid us sexually, no matter what the age. But watching a movie alone as I contemplate life in my boxers isn't that bad. So long as I keep putting the thought out there, the present, which is chock full of kids who adore you, friends you can laugh and enjoy being with, and good health is pretty friggin cool,
So Sez Sax...
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